^Y  OF  PniNC^ 


'^OiOGiCM  SE\A^^ 


BV  5082  .S36  1907a 
Scott,  W.  Major 
Aspects  of  Christian 
mysticism 


ASPECTS  OF 
CHRISTIAN    MYSTICISM 


ASPECTS  OF 
CHRISTIAN 
MYSTICISM 


BY    THE    REV. 

W.   MAJOR  "^SCOTT,  M.A. 


/  will  go  unto  the  altar  of  Goo 

Book  of  Psalms 

The.  Mystery  of  Unio7i  with  the  Son  of  God 

John  Bunyan 


NEW    YORK 
E.   P.    BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

1907 


PRINTED  BY 

HAZELL,   WATSON   AND  VINEY,   LD. 

LONDON   AND  AYLESBWRY, 

ENGLAND. 


TO 

MY    FATHER 

AND 

MY  MOTHER 


PREFACE 

The  studies  of  Christian  mystics  here  presented 
do  not  profess  to  be,  in  any  sense,  summaries 
of  their  teaching ;  they  are  statements,  partly 
expository,  of  certain  aspects  or  elements  of 
mystical  truth.  If,  to  any  reader,  they  should 
serve  as  an  introduction  to  that  vast  and 
fascinating  field  of  study — Christian  mysticism — 
they  will  have  achieved  their  purpose. 

For  the  awakening,  the  sustaining,  and  the 
deepening  of  the  spirituid  life  in  the  soul  of 
man,  perhaps  no  study,  if  it  be  undertaken  with 
humility,  is  more  fruitful  than  a  patient  reading 
of  the  great  Christian  mystics.  Of  such,  this 
little  volume^  may  claim  to  be,  not  untruly,  an 
outcome.  As  far  as  possible,  I  have  endeavoured 
to  use  the  ipsissima  verba  of  the  mystics  them- 
selves. 


viii  PREFACE 

My  Indebtedness  to  many  writers  is  great. 
Despite  its  unsatisfactory  character  and  unsym- 
pathetic tone,  Vaughan's  Hours  with  the  Mystics 
is  still,  in  many  ways,  indispensable.  I  have 
constantly  consulted  the  ''  Bampton  Lectures " 
on  Christian  Mysticism,  as  well  as  other  books 
by  Dr.  Inge,  with  whose  attitude  towards  the 
subject,  I  am,  however,  only  imperfectly  in 
sympathy,  but  to  whom  my  gratitude  is  never- 
theless sincere.  In  one  or  two  instances  I  have 
quoted  his  translations.  The  writings  of  the 
late  Rev.  J.  M.  Neale,  D.D.,  I  have  found  ever 
suggestive  ;  and  among  other  writers  whose  work 
has  laid  me  under  a  lasting  obligation,  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  name  Mrs.  Frances  A.  Bevan, 
Mr.  A.  E.  Waite,  the  Rev.  C.  Bigg,  D.D.,  the 
Rev.  W.  Robertson  Nicoll,  LL.D.,  the  Rev. 
Alexander  Whyte,  D.D.,  and  Mr.  J.  Rendel 
Harris,  Litt.D.  I  have  endeavoured  to  acknow- 
ledge points  of  special  indebtedness — if  any 
have  been  inadvertently  overlooked,  I  ask 
forgiveness. 

From    my   wife    I    have   received    much    help 


PREFACE  ix 

throughout,  but  especially  in  the  chapter  on 
St.  Teresa.  My  friend,  the  Rev.  G.  Currie 
Martin,  B.D.,  whose  counsel  and  aid,  in  the 
midst  of  his  professorial  duties,  have  been 
generously  given  me,  added  to  his  many  kind- 
nesses by  reading  and  criticizing  certain  chapters 
of  the  book,  and  to  him  I  tender  my  best 
thanks. 

W.  MAJOR  SCOTT. 

LlSCARD, 
1907. 


CONTENTS 


I  CONCERNING    MYSTICS   AND    MYSTICISM 

II.  ST.    PAUL   AND   ST.   JOHN 

~  III  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA      . 

l\.  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

V.  MASTER    ECKHART   . 

VI.  RUYSBROECK    . 

VII.  SUSO  .... 

VIII.  TAULER     .... 

IX  ST.    TERESA 

X.  ST.    lOHN    OF   THE   CROSS 

XI.  JACOB    HEHMEN 

XII.  PETER   STERRY 


14 
26 

53 

67 

81 

95 
108 
122 
132 
146 


ASPECTS  OF  CHRISTIAN 
MYSTICISM 

CHAPTER    I 

CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 

It  has  been  said  with  much  truth  that  mysticism 
is  a  word  of  evil  sound  in  English  ears,  and 
it  may  even  be  affirmed,  not  untruly,  that  mystics 
are  invariably  regarded  by  the  multitude  with 
something  like  suspicion.  Yet  in  a  certain  dim 
sense  it  is  as  true  to  say  that  all  men  are  mystics 
as  it  is  to  say  that  all  men  are  religious,  for  many 
are  mystics  after  an  unconscious  manner — albeit, 
by  them,  the  mystic  realities  are  touched  rather 
than  grasped.  Perhaps  the  *•  vocation  to  the 
inward  life"  is  not  for  all. 

To  give  a  definition  of  mysticism  is  at  once 
fatally  easy  and  exceedingly  difficult,  for  it  has 
been  made  to  denote  phenomena  so  diverse  as 
crude  supernaturalism  on  the  one  hand,  and 
visions    and    revelations    of    the    divine    on    the 

I 


2  CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 
other.  The  simplest  definition,  however,  will 
probably  be  found  to  be  the  truest  as  well  as 
the  most  illuminating.  We  say,  then,  frankly  that 
mysticism  is  the  science  of  spiritual  mysteries, 
and  the  mystic  is  one  who  is  concerned  with 
and  who  believes  in  spiritual  mysteries. 

One  of  the  commonest,  and,  it  may  be  added, 
one  of  the  falsest  of  popular  errors,  is  to  suppose 
that  a  mystery  is  necessarily  something  unfathom- 
able. A  mystery  is  rather  something  unrevealed, 
though  not  unrevealable.  It  is  something  hidden 
and  obscure  only  to  the  uninitiated.  It  is  ever 
a  secret,  but  to  the  initiated  it  is  an  open  one. 
The  secret  of  the  mystic  may  be,  speaking 
strictly,  indefinable,  but  it  is  also,  speaking 
strictly,  indisputable.  One  of  our  most  brilliant 
men  of  letters  has  recently  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  *'  much  of  our  modern  difficulty, 
in  religion  and  other  things,  arises  merely  from 
this  :  that  we  confuse  the  word  indefinable  with 
the  word  vague.  If  some  one  speaks  of  a  spiritual 
fact  as  indefinable  we  promptly  picture  some- 
thing misty,  a  cloud  with  indeterminate  edges." 
The  same  writer  goes  on  to  affirm  that  it  is 
just  the  indefinable  that  is  the  indisputable,  and 
that    there    are   some   people  to    whom    spiritual 


THE    MYSTIC    EXPERIMENT  3 

things  have  a  fierce  and  practical  proximity — 
to  whom  God  is  too  actual  to  be  defined.  Thus 
there  are  many  truths  which  may  be  rightly 
apprehended,  though  they  cannot  be  made 
wholly  transparent. 

The  mystic  recognises  and  holds  "that  far 
removed  from  ordinary  paths  and  interests, 
even  in  the  order  of  the  soul,  there  is  a  grand 
experiment  possible,  and  that  some  have  achieved 
it."^  This  experiment  is  a  spiritual  process  which 
demonstrates  the  possibility  in  this  present  life 
and  in  this  body  of  humiliation  of  knowing  God. 
By  means  of  this  spiritual  operation  the  mystic 
can  accomplish  a  "  reversion  to  the  fontal  source 
of  souls,"  and  enter  ''into  an  ecstatic  communion 
with  the  universal  consciousness." 

It  is,  however,  untrue  to  say,  as  some  critics 
of  mysticism  have  said,  that  the  ambition  of 
the  mystic  has  always  been  to  transcend  indi- 
viduality and  morality  alike,  or  that  the  mystic 
has  always  striven  to  reach  the  consciousness 
of  God  through  the  negation  of  self-conscious- 
ness. Rather  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say 
that  the  mystic  seeks  to  attain  a  fuller  know- 
ledge of  God,  through  a  deeper  reading  of  the 

1  A.  E.  Waite,  A  Book  of  Mystery  cuid  Vision,  p.  x. 


4  CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 
fact  of  self-consciousness.  It  was  R.  L.  Nettle- 
ship  who  finely  observed  that  *'  true  mysticism 
is  the  consciousness  that  everything  we  ex- 
perience is  an  element,  and  only  an  element  in 
fact — i.e.  that  in  being  what  it  is,  it  is  symbolic 
of  something  more."  ^  Benjamin  Jowett,  who 
presents  certain  interesting  affinities  with  the 
mystics,  writes  in  his  introduction  to  Plato's 
Phcedrus :  **  By  mysticism  we  mean  not  the 
extravagance  of  an  erring  fancy,  but  the  con- 
centration of  reason  in  feeling,  the  enthusiastic 
love  of  the  good,  the  true,  the  one,  the  sense 
of  the  infinity  of  knowledge  and  of  the  marvel 
of  the  human  faculties." 

The  mystic  proper,  however,  is  ''  a  man  who 
knows  that  there  is  only  one  character  of  true 
excellence  in  human  life,  and  that  is  the  seal 
or  character  which  expresses  the  sanction  of 
eternity";  or,  as  Lasson  phrases  it,  "mysticism 
views  everything  from  the  standpoint  of  teleo- 
logy." The  mystic  always  regards  life  sub  specie 
cEternitatis,  He  thus  escapes  the  thraldom  of 
sense  and  the  bondage  of  mere  words.  Rigor- 
ously cutting  off  temporal  correspondences  with 
things  on  the  earth  and  turning  resolutely  from 
^  R.  L.  Nettleship,  Remains. 


MYSTIC    CHARACTERISTICS  5 

lower  creations,  the  mystic  establishes  eternal 
correspondences  with  things  unseen,  and  stead- 
fastly looks  for  "  the  Blessed  Isles  of  the  Elect 
Children  "  and  the  "  Glory  of  the  Rosy  Cross." 
He  undergoes  a  spiritual  education,  conducted 
in  the  main  by  means  of  type  and  symbol,  for 
it  is  an  axiom  of  mysticism  that  all  things  possess 
an  interior  and  divine  meaning.  It  is  this 
meaning  which  the  mystic  waits  to  know. 

The  vital  things  are  the  eternal  and  the 
unseen  things.  The  mystical  or  sacramental 
view  of  life  may  be  traced  throughout  the 
history  of  mystical  thought  ;  although,  as 
Dr.  Bigg  has  pointed  out,  ''  there  is  properly 
speaking  no  history  of  the  mystics ;  only  bio- 
graphies. They  are  like  a  chain  of  stars,  each 
separated  from  the  other  by  a  gulf.  We  can 
trace  resemblances,  even  connections  ;  but  they 
themselves  tell  us  that  the  light  comes  direct 
from  the  sun,  and  is  not  passed  on  at  all.  Yet 
the  mystic  usually  reads  books,  and  the  beacon 
of  Dionysius,  or  Joachim,  or  Tauler  wakes  the 
kindred  soul  across  seas  or  centuries."  Thus 
the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  we  hear 
the  voice  thereof,  but  know  not  whence  it  cometh, 
and  whither  it  goeth.     This  is  true  of  every  one 


6  CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 
that  is  born  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  only  men  like 
Blake  who,  having  felt  the  breath  of  the  Spirit, 
ever  discern  God's  forehead  at  the  window,  or, 
like  Elias,  are  caught  up  to  God. 

When  we  speak  of  Christian  mysticism  we 
understand  that  process  of  initiation  into  fuller 
and  deeper  knowledge  of  divine  things  by  which 
the  spirit  of  man  is  led  towards  ultimate  union 
with  God.  Therein  the  soul  traverses  a  path 
which  the  vulture's  eye  hath  not  seen,  but  a 
path  which  leads  to  the  Heart  of  the  Rose.  The 
exercised  Christian  believer  is  led  into  the  mystery 
of  union  with  the  Son  of  God ;  and  it  is  to 
the  open  mind  and  adoring  heart  of  such  that 
the  flaming  vision  is  vouchsafed  and  '*  the  Interior 
Translation  and  the  Mystic  Apocalypse  "  known. 
This  the  Philistines  understand  not.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  that  "  the  special  patrimony  of  Christian 
Mysticism  "  is  the  "  mystery  of  universal  symbo- 
lism," which  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
spiritual  theory  of  life.  And  this  precious  heritage 
has  charmed  many  to  the  Christ  in  whom  are 
hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge. 
The  everlasting  power  and  divinity  of  the  in- 
visible things  are,  since  the  creation  of  the  world, 
clearly  seen   by  the   Christian   mystic,   being,  as 


THE   SECRET   OF   MYSTICISM  7 

St.  Paul  says,  *' perceived  through  the  things  that 
are  made."     By  means  of  the  Christian  symbolism 
the  soul   that   is  clothed  with   humility  advances 
by  a  sequence  of  mystic  experience  towards  the 
supreme  sacrament  of  the  everlasting  light.     The  — - 
dictum   that  "  esoteric  Christianity   holds  all  "  is 
to    be    interpreted    in    this    sense.       Undeniable 
though   it   be    that    the   growing   revelations  and 
enlarged  experiences  of  the  Christian  mystic  are 
both  sealed  and  secret  thing^s  for  all   those  who 
have    never    passed    the    mystic    portal,    and,    in 
consequence,  have  never  shared  them,  it  is  never- 
theless true  that  if  we  desire,  the  door  is  opened 
to  us,  if  we  dare,  the  gain  is  glorious,  if  we  "will" 
to  do,  the  great  achievement  is  possible.     But  we 
always  need  to  remember  that  the  subject  of  the 
art  requires,  as  Raymund  says,  its  proper  earth. 

Any  religion,  it  may  be  affirmed,  to  have  life 
and  power  must  be  mystical  ;  and  all  truly 
religious  men  are  mystics.  That  contemplative 
author,  Mr.  A.  C.  Benson,  writing  From  a 
College  Window,  has  said  in  his  essay  on  religion  : 
"  There  is  a  motto  which  I  should  like  to  see 
written  over  the  door  of  every  place  of  worship, 
both  as  an  invitation  and  a  warning  :  thou  shalt 

MAKE      ME      TO      UNDERSTAND      WISDOM       SECRETLY. 


8  CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 
It  is  an  invitation  to  those  who  enter,  to  come 
and  participate  in  a  great  and  holy  mystery  ;  and 
it  is  a  warning  to  those  who  believe  that  in 
the  formalities  of  religion  alone  is  the  secret  of 
religion  to  be  found."  Without  the  mystic 
element  religion  becomes  always  an  external, 
and  often  an  empty  thing.  The  life-blood  of 
the  Christian  faith  is  its  mysticism  ;  and  the 
Church,  to  quote  the  words  of  Dr.  Bigg,  "  can 
never  get  rid  of  the  mystic  spirit,  nor  should 
she  attempt  to  do  so,  for  it  is,  in  fact,  her  life. 
It  is  another  name  for  conscience,  for  freedom, 
for  the  rights  of  the  individual  soul,  for  the 
grace  and  privilege  of  direct  access  to  the  Re- 
deemer for  the  presence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in 
•*  the  heart.     You  cannot  quench  this  prophecy." 

If  we  add  to  these  considerations  the  governing 
idea  of  unity,  and  the  illuminating  idea  of  eternity, 
we  grasp,  though  we  cannot  exhaust  the  vital 
content  of  mysticism. 

The  unwavering  belief,  then,  of  the  Christian 
mystic  is  that  it  is  possible  to  apprehend  and 
assimilate  spiritual  truths  ;  and  in  quietness  and 
confidence  he  finds  not  only  strength,  but  illumi- 
nation. The  knowledge  of  God  which  he  seeks 
is  attained  by  a  fruitful  stillness.     He  listens  and 


thp:  knowledge  of  god  9 

waits  for  the  still  small  voice  of  God  speaking 
to  him,  and  he  believes  that  there  is  no  know- 
ledge of  divine  things  so  precious  and  so  sure 
as  that  which  is  imparted  in  this  way.  Modern 
psychology  might  express  this  fact  by  speaking 
of ''an  extension  of  the  frontier  of  consciousness," 
but  such  a  phrase  scarcely  conveys  to  the  devout 
religious  soul  the  deep  meaning  embodied  in  the 
aspiration  of  his  heart. 

No  man,  it  has  been  said,  can  see  God's  face 
and  live  ;  but  apart  from  communion  with  God 
we  must  die,  and  the  mystic  grounds  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge  of  God  in  the  fact  that  man 
is  a  partaker  of  the  divine.  To  accomplish  our 
end  in  the  spiritual  order  we  must  know  God. 
We  can  know  the  divine,  because,  potentially,  we 
are  divine.  He  maintains  to  the  full  the  stupen — 
dous  and  awful  truth  that  man  is  made  in  the 
image  of  God.  Every  man  may  be  a  saint  if 
he  so  wills,  because  God  so  willed  it  from  the 
beginning.  Doubtless  this  is  a  great  mystery,  but 
in  its  light  many  other  dark  things  become  clear. 

If  the  divine  image  in  man  has  been  defaced, 
the  divine  wisdom  will  be  obscured,  for  "  the 
God-light  falls  lost,  if  it  shine,  on  the  eye  un- 
responsive and  blind."     Only  the  pure  in  heart 


lo   CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND   MYSTICISM 
can  see  God — that  is,  only  the  pure  in  heart  can 
enjoy  unbroken  communion  with    Him.  as  they 
bow  before  '*  the  Closed  Eye  of  the  Unknown 
Darkness."     There  is  a  way  for  man  to   rise — 
the  scala  perfectionis — a  path  by  which  the  mystic 
ascends   on  stepping-stones  of  his  dead    self  to 
higher   things.     Losing  his   life  and   freed  from 
the  bondage  of  self  and    sin,  he  gains  the  life 
which  is  life  indeed,  and  enters  upon  that  uphill 
road  which  knows  no  other  goal  than  union  with 
God.     He    tends  and  waters  the  garden  of  his 
soul,   that    one    day   he    may  behold    blossoming 
"  the  splendid  white  flower  which  is  red  inside." 
The  Christian  mystic  is  a  sojourner  and  stranger 
in    the  wilderness  of  this  world,  and  his  life  is 
a  pilgrimage   towards  the   ''  serene   and   solemn 
spirit-land,"  as  it  is  called  by  Goethe,  which  is 
the  soul's  true  home.     He  knows  *'  that  there  is 
indeed  but  one  thing  needful,  which  is  the  union 
of  the  soul  with  God." 

Mysticism  has  often  been  identified,  though 
erroneously,  with  symbolism  or  allegorism,  but 
these  should  rather  be  regarded  as  handmaids 
which  attain  considerable  prominence  in  the 
mystical  interpretation  of  the  world  around.  To 
the  mystic  "  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  whole 


ALLEGORY    AND   SYMBOL  it 

universe  bursts  forth  into  a  flame  and  blossom- 
ing of  parable,  symbol,  and  sacrament."  He 
believes,  with  fervour,  that  the  highest  spiritual 
truths  may  be  enshrined  in  symbol  and  metaphor, 
and  that  our  consciousness  of  these  things  can 
only  thus  be  expressed,  though  some  have  risen 
beyond  them.  But  all  mystics  would  maintain 
that  allegory,  parable,  and  ceremony  are  economies 
of  divine  things  and  fraught  with  eternal  mean- 
ings. All  language,  in  this  connection,  must  be 
analogical,  suggesting  and  dimly  hinting  at  the 
form  of  the  hidden  reality.  Regarding  all  the 
natural  things  of  life  as  sacramental,  the  mystic 
believes  that — 

...  By  a  quest 
Which  does  not  take  too  far  or  ask  too  much 
He  can  achieve  their  meanings,  and  the  grace 
Which  Hes  within,  their  Hving  language  learn, 
And  this  shall  take  him  past  all  outward  pomps 
Far  into  vision,  far  through  Mystery.^ 

Thus,  through  nature,  he  is  led  into  the  deeper 
life  of  the  spirit ;  and  by  patiendy  treading  the 
inner  way  he  comes  to  possess  a  knowledge  of 
the  secrets  of  that  life  which  is  hid  with  Christ 
in  God.  More  life  and  fuller  is  the  desire  of 
the  mystic;  and  the  life  more  abundant  is  to 
1  A.  E.  Waite,  A  Book  of  Mystery  and  Vision, 


12  CONCERNING  MYSTICS  AND  MYSTICISM 
be  found  alone  by  the  inward  way.  The  kingdom 
of  God  is  within.  Hence  the  saying  that  the 
Christian  mystic  is  concerned  with  three  great 
mysteries  :  God,  the  Soul,  and  Revelation. 

It  should  be  said  in  passing  that  it  is  only 
those  blind  to  the  sublimity  of  the  mystic's  ideal, 
who  (as  Mr.  Swinburne  has  finely  observed  in 
his  discriminating  essay  on  William  Blake), 
"  regard  mysticism  with  distaste  or  contempt, 
as  essentially  in  itself  a  vain  or  noxious  thing — 
a  sealed  bag  or  bladder  that  can  only  be  full 
either  of  wind  or  of  poison." 

The  mystic's  path — and  the  only  path  leading 
to  the  goal  of  the  Soul — is  ''the  interior  way," 
of  which  much  will  be  said  later  on.  For  the 
present,  it  may  be  stated  briefly  as  consisting 
of  three  stages.  The  first  is  that  of  purgation, 
in  which  the  soul  is  by  discipline  purified  from 
the  lusts  which  war  against  her.  This  is  followed 
by  illumination,  when  divine  things  are  made 
visible  to  the  expectant.  The  last  stage  is  that 
of  full  contemplation  of  and  union  with  the 
divine,  when  the  soul  no  longer  sees  through  a 
glass  darkly,  but  is  at  one  with  God,  and  inhabits 
''  those  worlds  of  eternity  in  which  we  shall  live 
for  ever  in  Jesus  our  Lord." 


LIFE    IN   GOD  13 

To  sum  up,  one  may  say  that  the  mystic 
strives  to  see  God  in  all  life,  and  all  life  in  God. 
Visible  things  are  transformed  into  symbols  of 
the  invisible, 

With  angels  planted  in  hawthorn  bowers, 
And  God  Himself  in  the  passing  hours. 

He  lives  and  labours  under  other  heavens  than 
those  recognised  by  the  people  who,  as  Plato 
said  long  ago,  live  the  life  of  a  shell-fish.  He 
proves  the  integrity  of  his  purpose  and  the 
sincerity  of  his  faith  by  a  rigorous  discipline  of 
his  life.  And  although  the  history  of  Mysticism 
shows  disastrous  aberrations,  yet  ''  one  may  think 
it  worth  while  to  follow  out  and  track  to  its  root 
the  peculiar  faith  or  fancy  of  a  mystic  without 
being  ready  to  accept  his  deductions  and  his 
assertions  as  absolute  and  durable  facts."  For 
those  of  us  who  in  this  house  of  our  earthly 
tabernacle  feel  the  bitterness  of  our  exile,  the 
sight  of  those  who  have  won  their  way  and  are 
now  at  home  in  God  is  of  immeasurable  worth, 
and  oft-times  we  wonder — 

How  will  it  come   to   us,   that   great   day  ?     What  will   the 

dawn  disclose  ? 
Past  veils   expended,   the   omens  ended,  what   truth   at   the 

heart  of  those  ? 


CHAPTER    II 

ST.  PAUL  AND  ST.  JOHN 

St.  Paul  is  the  prince  of  all  true  Christian 
mystics,  for  not  only  is  he  the  most  mystical 
of  all  New  Testament  writers,  as  has  often 
been  pointed  out,  but  he  is  also  the  one  who 
has  penetrated  farthest  into  the  mystery  of  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

His  gospel,  as  he  affirms,  came  to  him  through 
revelation  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  he  was  brought 
to  know  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery.  A 
careful  study  of  St.  Paul's  mysticism  is  essential, 
therefore,  if  we  would  seize  the  secret  held  by 
the  cloud  of  witnesses.  At  the  outset,  it  is  well 
to  notice  that  his  entire  career  was  changed  as 
a  consequence  of  a  vision  which  came  to  him 
as  he  journeyed  along  the  road  to  Damascus — 
a  vision  to  which,  in  after-years,  he  could 
declare,  "  I  was  not  disobedient."  In  this 
vision,  he  says  with  simplicity  and  calmness, 
Christ    appeared  to  him.     Elsewhere  he   speaks 

14 


ST.    PAUL'S   VISIONS  15 

of  visions  and  revelations  which  he  received  of 
divine  things.  At  various  times  he  puts  it  on 
record  that  he  saw  visions  and  heard  voices ; 
and  once,  at  least,  he  was  caught  up  in  an  ecstasy 
and  heard  things  unutterable.  He  identifies 
himself  with  ''a  man  in  Christ,"  who,  "whether 
in  the  body  or  apart  from  the  body,"  he  knew 
not,  was  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven,  into 
Paradise,  and  heard  unspeakable  words,  which 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  man  to  utter.  He  glories 
on  behalf  of  such  a  man,  and  by  reason  of  the 
exceeding  greatness  of  the  visions  and  revelations 
of  the  Lord.  The  question  may  be  asked,  '*  Did 
St.  Paul  gain  greater  insight  into  divine  truth  as 
a  consequence  ? "  Perhaps  not,  directly.  There 
is  a  saying  which  is  attributed  to  Aristotle, 
concerning  the  Greek  mysteries,  to  the  effect 
that  ''the  initiated  learned  nothing  precisely, 
but  received  impressions,  and  were  put  into 
a  certain  frame  of  mind."  We  may  assert, 
then,  that  visions  and  ecstasies  do  not  con- 
stitute the  heart  of  mystic  experience — that  lies 
elsewhere. 

The  mystical  union  of  the  believer  with  Christ 
is  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  St.  Paul's 
mysticism,   which    always    has    the    Son    of   God 


16  ST.    PAUL   AND   ST.   JOHN 

at  its  central  shrine.  "It  was  the  good  pleasure 
of  God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  me,"  writes  St.  Paul  ; 
and  from  that  moment  in  his  life  to  the  close,  the 
idea  of  a  vital  union  between  himself  and  Christ 
was  always  present  to  him.  He  was  united  with 
Christ  and  lived  in  Him.  This  mystic  experience, 
which  had  become  the  great  reality  of  his  life, 
he  desired  all  his  converts  to  share.  He  writes 
to  them,  therefore,  of  the  mystery  "now  made 
manifest  to  the  saints  .  .  .  which  is  Christ  in  you." 
Closely  allied  to  this,  is  the  further  mystical  idea 
of  the  soul  of  a  Christian  experiencing  and  passing 
through,  even  in  a  measure  sharing  in  the 
redemptive  process  of  Christ.  Always  he  bears 
about  in  his  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  manifest  in  him. 
Nay,  he  even  fills  up  that  which  is  behind 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  This  process  of 
identification  with  Christ  in  His  sufferings,  of 
being  crucified  with  Christ,  symbolically  spoken 
of,  by  one  mystic  writer,  as  tasting  His  death, 
is  but  another  aspect  of  Christ  being  formed  in 
the  soul  of  the  Christian.  But  the  mystic  passes 
onward  from  this  stage  to  that  of  participation 
in  the  Divine  nature,  in  which  he,  as  in  a  mirror, 
reflects  the  glory  of  the  Lord.     H  is  real  personality, 


CHRIST   THE    MYSTIC    HEAD  17 

as  distinct  from  his  individuality,  can  only  be 
attained  in  this  manner.  Not  to  be  unclothed  but 
to  be  clothed  upon  is  his  desire,  and  to  be  filled 
with  all  the  fulness  of  God  is  his  ultimate  goal. 

St.  Paul  lays  great  stress,  in  his  mystical  teach- 
ing, on  the  Headship  of  Christ.  Christ  is  not 
only  all  in  all,  the  one  eternal  source  of  life,  and 
the  Image  of  the  invisible  God,  but  He  is  the 
mystic  Head  of  the  whole  creation.  According 
to  their  several  capacities,  all  created  beings  are 
images  of  Him  and  share  His  life.  He  is  the 
Head  of  all  principality  and  power,  and  in  Him 
we  are  made  full.  Holding  fast  the  Head, 
all  the  body  increaseth  with  the  increase  of 
God. 

St.  Paul  adds  to  his  mystical  conception  of  the 
Person  and  work  of  Christ  the  mystical  conception 
of  the  Church  as  the  Bride  of  Christ.  This  latter 
idea  has  exercised  a  very  potent  influence  in 
the  history  of  mystical  theology ;  and,  occasionally, 
its  greatness  and  fruitfulness  have  been  obscured 
by  repugnant  perversions  of  the  holy  truth  which 
it  enshrines.  According  to  St.  Paul,  Christ  is 
the  Head,  and  the  Church  is  the  body;  neither  is 
complete  apart  from  the  other.  Christ  needs  the 
Church,  and  the  Church  needs  Christ.    The  Church 

2 


i8  ST.    PAUL   AND    ST.   JOHN 

stands  in  a  relation  of  dutiful  subjection  to  her 
Lord,  and  Christ's  attitude  towards  His  Church 
is  that  of  gracious  protection.  St.  Paul  regards 
the  sacrament  of  marriage  as  a  parable  of  the 
mystic  union  by  which  the  Church  is  one  with 
Christ.  The  Church,  then,  is  the  mystical  body 
of  Christ,  cleansed  and  sanctified  and  glorious, 
not  having  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing. 

Undoubtedly  much  of  the  language  and  imagery 
employed  by  St.  Paul  is  taken  over  from  the 
Greek  mysteries.  For  example,  there  is  the  con- 
stantly recurring  idea  of  maturity  or  perfection, 
in  which  degrees  of  initiation  are  assumed.  He 
speaks  wisdom,  he  says,  among  the  perfect — that 
is,  among  those  who  are  fully  initiated,  and  there- 
fore are  able  to  apprehend  not  only  the  lesser  but 
also  the  greater  mysteries.  He  labours  to  the 
end  that  he  may  present  every  man  perfectly 
initiated  in  Christ  Jesus. 

He  speaks  of  a  personal  experience  of  the 
divine  fellowship  which  is  only  known  by  enlight- 
enment, by  illumination.  He  teaches,  however, 
that  it  is  possible  for  all  men  to  be  enlightened. 
The  necessary  conditions  of  initiation  are  not, 
or  ought  not  to  be,  a  barrier  to  any.  Being 
cleansed   from   all  defilement  of  flesh  and  spirit, 


DOCTRINE    OF   THE    SPIRIT  19 

we  begin  the  mystic  ascent,  and  guided  by  the 
lamp  of  love  it  is  possible  for  all  to  reach  the 
radiant  summit. 

St.  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  is  characteristic 
and  very  suggestive.  It  is  the  letter  which  killeth, 
but  the  Spirit  which  giveth  life  ;  and  where  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty.  It  is  the 
Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  which  makes  us 
free,  and  which  searcheth  all  things,  even  the 
deep  things  of  God.  To  walk  in  the  Spirit 
is  to  bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  and  these 
are  love,  joy,  and  peace.  We  are  not  under  law, 
if  we  are  led  by  the  Spirit.  In  some  places, 
St.  Paul  seems  to  identify  Christ  with  the  Spirit, 
for  he  writes  of  those  who,  with  unveiled  face, 
beholding  as  in  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord, 
are  transformed  into  the  same  image  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  from  the  Lord  the  Spirit. 
Christ  is  a  "  life-giving  Spirit,"  and  if  any  man 
have  not  this  spirit  he  cannot  be  a  partaker  of 
spiritual  things. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  St.  Paul  con- 
tinually insists  that  divine  truths  are  spiritually 
discerned,  and  he  alone  that  is  spiritual  judgeth 
all  things.  It  is  the  spiritual  being  or  "  the  Con- 
cealed Man  "  who  can  tread  the  unsealed  heights 


20  ST.    PAUL   AND    ST.   JOHN 

and  sound  the  unmeasured  profundities.  No  gift 
is  to  be  more  earnestly  coveted  than  that  of 
spiritual  understanding,  for  only  thus  can  we  com- 
pare spiritual  things  with  spiritual.  This  doctrine 
of  the  inner  light  is  universally  characteristic  of 
mystical  theology,  and  is,  undoubtedly,  one  liable 
to  grave  and  mischievous  perversion  ;  but  in 
essence,  and  as  stated  by  St.  Paul,  it  is  a  divine 
and  precious  truth.  It  is  the  affirmation  of  the 
great  fact  that  there  is  a  higher  faculty  than  that 
of  *'  reasoning,"  that  the  spiritual  man  possesses 
and  exercises  an  intuitive  instrument  of  knowledge, 
and  that  he  '*  knows  "  by  an  interior  process  in 
the -spiritual  part  of  his  being. 

The  Gospel  according  to  St.  John  has  been 
regarded  by  some  initiates  as  the  charter  of 
Christian  mysticism,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand 
this  view,  when  we  remember  that  many  of  the 
distinctive  features  of  mysticism  are  found  in  it. 
The  Incarnation  is  the  fact  which  dominates  the 
Gospel  throughout,  and  it  is  the  supreme  revela- 
tion of  the  divine.  No  man  hath  seen  God  at 
any  time,  but  He  has  been  declared  by  the  only 
beorotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father.  It  is  thus  that  the  Eternal  Life  and 
the  Eternal  Love  have  been  manifested  to  men; 


ST.  JOHN  AND  THE  NEW  BHU^H  21 
by  the  Word  which  was  with  God,  and  was 
God.  Through  Him  all  things  were  made,  and 
that  which  hath  been  made  was  life  in  Him  ;  and 
the  life  was  the  Light  of  men.  St.  John  then 
regards  the  whole  creation  as  part  of  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  Divine  Word,  and  he  constantly 
employs  as  symbols  of  unseen  things  and  eternal 
realities,  things  which  are  seen  and  temporal. 

The    supreme    revelation    of   divine    things    is 
expressed    by,   and    in    Christ.     It    can    only    be 
communicated,  however,  to  those  who  stand  in  a 
divine  relationship.     It  is  a  distinct  and  definite  re- 
velation, although  it  can  be  only  gradually  unfolded. 
Very  important  in   St.  John's   teaching  is  the 
idea  of  a  new  birth  or  a  birth  from  above,  which 
is    the    one    indispensable    condition    of  entering 
upon    the    soul's    great    quest.     Until   a   man   be 
born  from  above  he  cannot  even  see  the  kingdom 
of  God,  and  except  a  man  be  born  of  the  Spirit 
he  cannot  enter  it.     St.  John  teaches  that  whoso- 
ever believeth  on  Jesus  as  the  Christ  is  begotten 
of  God,  is  born  of  the  Spirit.     Further,  the  soul 
that  is  begotten  of  God  overcometh  the  world, 
and    "  doeth    no    sin."     We   are  assured  of  the 
victory,  because  greater  is   He  that  is  in  us  than 
he    that    is    in    the    world. 


22  ST.    PAIiL   AND   ST.   JOHN 

St.  John's  teaching  concerning  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  soul  is  very  explicit.  The  soul  is 
cleansed  by  the  indwelling  Word,  and  sanctified 
by  the  divine  and  abiding  Truth.  It  is  cleansed 
and  purified  in  order  that  there  may  be  fijlfilled 
in  it  the  divine  intention.  The  doctrine  of  the 
soul's  development,  of  the  progressive  realisa- 
tion of  eternal  life  which  we  find  in  St.  John's 
writings,  is  in  substance  the  same  as  St.  Paul's. 
Apart  from  Christ  there  can  be  neither  growth 
in  grace  nor  experience  of  the  life  that  is 
abundant. 

Thus  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  the  living  Bread, 
the  Bread  from  heaven,  which  we  must  eat  and 
assimilate.  To  believe  on  Christ  is  to  receive 
Him  as  a  principle  of  life;  and  Christ  Himself 
becomes  a  spring  of  life  within  our  souls.  This 
thought  of  the  soul's  participation  in  Christ  is  a 
ruling  conception  in  St.  John's  mind.  Christ  is 
able  to  communicate  the  life  which  He  possesses 
to  the  believing  soul,  and  such  communication 
means  sustenance,  growth,  and  progress.  Christ 
lived  for  us  and  died  for  us  ;  and  the  meaning  of 
the  mystical  language  concerning  the  bread  and 
the  wine  is  to  be  seen  in  the  effects  of  His  life 
and  death,  which  He  communicates  to  the  soul. 


UNITY   AND    UNION  23 

Apart  from  this  appropriation  of  a  sacrificial 
life,  a  man  can  have  no  life  in  himself;  his  life 
is  in  Christ,  and  not  in  himself  St.  John 
would  agree  with  St.  Paul  that,  if  any  man  be 
in  Christ  Jesus,  he  is  a  new  creation, — created 
in  Christ  unto  good  works. 

St.  John,  too,  places  the  mystic  idea  of  unity 
in  the  forefront.  He*  agrees  with  St.  Paul  that 
believers  are  one  in  Christ,  and  that  their  true 
life  is  realised  only  in  their  abiding  union  with 
Him.  The  fruitfulness  of  their  life  is  dependent 
upon  their  abiding  in  Christ  ;  for  out  of  Christ 
they  can  do  nothing.  They  are  to  be  one, 
even  as  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  one,— 
perfected  into  one  by  the  indwelling  Christ. 

St.  John's  mystical  doctrine  of  the  Spirit, 
which  is  a  very  conspicuous  feature  of  his 
teaching,  is  markedly  akin  to  that  of  St.  Paul. 
Divine  knowledge  follows  upon  the  growing 
illumination  of  the  Spirit,  and  by  the  certainty 
of  the  inward  assurance,  the  soul  is  convinced 
of  the  truth  of  the  knowledge  imparted,  the  Spirit 
witnessing  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  children 
of  God.  In  a  very  mystical  passage,  St.  John 
speaks  of  the  threefold  witness, — the  Spirit  and 
the  water  and  the  blood,- — signifying  God's  three- 


24  ST.    PAUL   AND    ST.   JOHN 

fold  testimony  as  to  His  gift  of  eternal  life 
in  His  Son.  The  Spirit,  says  St.  John,  gives 
testimony,  because  the  Spirit  is  the  truth  ;  and 
Jesus  Christ  came,  not  with  the  water  only,  but 
with  the  water  and  the  blood.  He  who  believes 
in  the  Son  of  God  has  the  witness  in  his  own 
heart.  St.  John  further  writes  of  the  Spirit  of 
Truth  within  us  and  abiding  within  us,  who  shall 
teach  us  all  things,  guiding  us  into  all  the  truth 
and  declaring  the  things  that  are  to  come.  This 
Spirit,  which  proceedeth  from  the  Father,  con- 
victs the  world  in  respect  of  sin  and  of  righteous- 
ness and  of  judgment,  and  bears  witness  of 
Christ.  Indeed,  at  times,  like  St,  Paul,  St.  John 
seems  to  identify  the  Spirit  with  Christ.  The 
soul  needs  no  other  teacher  save  the  Spirit  who 
is  the  Truth.  ''  Ye  have,"  declares  the  apostle, 
'*an  anointing  from  the  Holy  One,  and  ye  all  know 
the  anointing  which  ye  received  abideth  in  you, 
and  ye  need  not  that  any  one  teach  you,  for  His 
anointing  teacheth  you  concerning  all  things." 

It  remains  only  to  note  the  emphasis  which 
St.  John  lays  on  Love  in  his  teaching.  Love 
is  of  God,  and  God  is  Love.  We  are  to  love 
one  another  as  Christ  hath  loved  us,  and  so 
manifest  the  love  of  God.     He  who  loveth  God, 


THE    LOVE   OF   GOD  25 

lovcth  his  brother ;  and  he  who  dwelleth  in  love 
dwelleth  in  God.  He  that  loveth  hath  eternal 
life  abiding  in  him,  but  he  that  hateth  abideth 
in  death  ;  and  we  know  that  we  have  passed 
out  of  death  into  life,  because  we  love.  ''We 
love,"  says  St.  John,  ^'because  He  first  loved  us." 


CHAPTER    III 

CLEMENT   OF  ALEXANDRIA 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  it  has  been^sald  by  Dr. 
Bigg,  was  the  father  of  all  the  Christian  mystics, 
but  no  mystic  himself;  that  the  enchanted  garden 
which  he  opened  for  others  he  did  not  himself 
enter ;  in  a  word,  that  Clement  shrank  from  his 
own  conclusions.  But  this  is  only  true  if  we  agree 
with  Dr.  Bigg  in  regarding  mysticism  as  co- 
extensive with  ecstasy,  a  view  which  is  surely 
both  arbitrary  and  unnecessary.  "  O  truly  sacred 
mysteries!"  cries  Clement,  *' O  stainless  light! 
My  way  is  lighted  with  torches,  and  I  survey 
the  heavens  and  God  !  I  am  become  holy  while 
I  am  being  initiated.  The  Lord  is  my  hiero- 
phant."  The  man  who  could  write  thus  must 
certainly  have  advanced  some  way  along  the 
mystic  path. 

Clement's    writings    cover  so   wide   a  field    of 

thought,    and    embrace    so    great    an    area     of 

26 


THE  ''CHILD"  AND  THE  "MAN"  27 
Christian  doctrine  and  experience,  that  it  is  easy 
to  overlook  his  distinctively  mystical  teaching. 

His  aim  was  to  construct  a  knowledge  of  God 
by  which  the  Christian  believer  should  be  initiated 
into  the  holy  mysteries  of  his  faith— a  knowledge 
of  God  including  the  divine  secrets,  the  secret 
Word,  and  the  mysteries  of  the  Word. 

The  following  sentences  will  show  how  Clement 
regarded  the  process  of  initiation  into  fuller  know- 
ledge of  the  Christian  mysteries.     "  As  the  word 
'  child '    implies    one    who    is    learning,    so    the 
word   'man'   implies   one   who    is    teaching,  and 
in    Scripture    the   word    'man'    is    employed    to 
express  that  which  is  perfect.     Our  Lord  is  called 
a   'man'    on    account    of   His   being   perfect    in 
righteousness;  and  we  shall   be  perfected  when 
we  become  the  Church  and  receive  Christ  as  the 
Head."      ''  Perfection  as  regards  the  performance 
of  law  is  to  be  but  a  child  in  Christ."     "When 
St.   Paul    became    a    man    he    put   away  childish 
things— the    things    of  the    law,  and  understood 
the  things  of  Christ,  who  in  Scripture  is  called 
'  the  Man.'  "     ''  The  sick  need  a  Saviour  and  the 
lost  a  guide  ;  the  blind,  one  who  shall  give  light, 
and  the  thirsty,  the  living  fountain,  that  drinking, 
he  shall  thirst  no  more  ;  the  dead  need  life  and 


28  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

the  sheep  a  shepherd  ;  children  need  a  teacher, 
and  all  mankind  need  Jesus." 

This  knowledge,  it  is  to  be  noted,  is  rooted 
and  grounded  in  the  revelation  delivered  once 
for  all  to  the  saints. 

As  a  man  becomes  a  new  creation  in  Christ, 
so  from  Christ  proceeds  that  fuller  manifestation 
of  divine  realities  which  it  is  life  and  peace  to 
know.  Thus  Clement  speaks  of  the  initiated  as 
those  who  have  learned  the  divine  mysteries 
from  the  only  begotten  Son,  and  as  becoming 
pure  in  heart  by  means  of  that  knowledge  which 
is  through  the  Son  of  God.  By  this  means 
alone  are  they  "  initiated  face  to  face  into  the 
blessed  contemplation."  It  is  Christ,  says 
Clement,  the  Word  of  Truth,  the  Word  of  in- 
corruption,  who  regenerates  man,  leading  him 
back  to  the  truth.  Christ  Is  the  centre  of 
salvation,  and  He  freely  offers  light  and  life  to 
the  darkened  and  dead  soul. 

There  are  lesser  mysteries  and  the  great 
mysteries,  just  as  there  is  a  knowledge  which  is 
darkly  partial  and  a  knowledge  which  is  perfect  ; 
the  former  lead  on  to  the  latter,  as  the  many 
lead  to  the  one.  Babes  are  to  be  fed  with 
milk  ;  the  perfect  man  with  solid  food.     Instruc- 


CHRISTIAN    PERFECTION  29 

tion  in  the  primary  rudiments  of  the  gospel  is 
indeed  the  first  nourishment  of  the  soul  ;  but 
full  and  perfect  insight  into  the  truth,  a  con- 
templation which  discerns  all  mysteries,  a  com- 
prehension of  the  blood  and  flesh  of  the  Word 
and  of  the  divine  power  and  essence,  is  needful 
for  the  fully-grown  man.  This  latter  knowledge 
is  not  a  barren  word,  but  a  sort  of  divine 
science  which  makes  all  things  manifest  in  their 
origin,  prepares  man  to  know  himself,  and 
teaches  him  to  reach  out  toward  God.  This 
knowledge  is  the  perfection  of  man  as  man  ; 
and  the  mystic  is  perfected  through  the  science 
of  divine  things,  for  he  is  in  unison  with  the 
Divine  Word  and  intimately  united  to  God. 
Clement  quotes  the  saying  of  St.  Paul  respecting 
his  knowledge  in  the  mystery  of  Christ,  and 
refers  to  the  special  instruction  of  the  perfect 
which  St.  Paul  alludes  to  in  his  epistle  to  the 
Colossians.  Some  mysteries,  says  Clement,  were 
concealed  until  the  times  of  the  apostles,  and 
were  delivered  by  them  as  they  received  them 
from  the  Lord.  These  mysteries  which  were 
hidden  in  the  Old  Testament  are  now  revealed 
to  the  saints.  Clement  adds,  however,  that  this 
knowledge  is  not  imparted  to  all  believers.     The 


30  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

vital  energies  of  the  spiritual  deep  and  the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come  are  known  only  by  the 
initiated. 

According  to  Clement  there  are  two  forms  of 
truth  :  one  relating  to  words,  and  the  other  to 
things.  This  latter,  he  suggests,  is  possessed 
by  the  initiated  alone.  Clement  makes  a  dis- 
tinction between  that  which  is  written  and  its 
deeper  meaning — the  concealed  reality  which  is 
the  subject  of  a  higher  knowledge.  Instruction 
in  the  higher  form  of  truth  is  called  illumination, 
because  it  makes  manifest  that  which  is  hidden. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  writes  Clement,  that 
neither  the  prophets  nor  the  Saviour  Himself 
announced  the  divine  mysteries  so  as  to  be 
easily  comprehended  by  every  one,  but  spoke 
in  parables.  The  deepest  interpretation  is  always 
the  truest.  This  is  not  intended  to  be  the 
negation,  but  the  affirmation  of  the  place  of 
reason  as  an  interpretation  of  divine  realities  ; 
for  Clement  regards  the  mystical  as  springing 
out  of  the  rational.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  historical  facts  of  the  Christian  revelation 
are  accorded  their  due  place  in  Clement's 
teaching,  but  the  idea  they  enslirine  is  always 
placed    in     the    forefront  ;    the    outward    sign    is 


SPIRITUAL   KNOWLEDGE  31 

acknowledged,  but  it  is  the  inncT  truth  that  is 
regarded.  The  mystic  possesses  the  true  logic 
which  alone  leads  to  the  true  wisdom.  That 
true  wisdom  is  the  divine  power  which,  knowing 
things  as  they  are  and  exempt  from  all  passion, 
reaches  out  toward  perfection.  It  cannot  be 
attained  apart  from  the  Saviour,  who,  by  the 
divine  word,  removes  the  veil  of  ignorance 
spread  over  the  eye  of  the  soul  by  the  things 
of  sense,  and  gives  that  which  is  best — the  power 
of  discerning  between  God  and  man.  The  true 
and  spiritual  meaning  of  the  Scriptures  is  pos- 
sessed by  the  mystic  alone,  and  to  him  the 
sayings  of  the  Lord,  though  obscure  to  others, 
are  clear  and  manifest.  He  has  obtained  know- 
ledge concerning  all  ;  for,  says  Clement,  "  our 
oracles  return  answers  concerning  things  present, 
as  they  are ;  concerning  things  future,  as  they 
will  be ;  concerning  things  past,  as  they  have 
been."  This  knowledge  is  quite  different  from 
that  derived  through  the  senses,  which  is  common 
to  all  men ;  it  is  not  born  with  men,  but  is 
acquired  by  attention,  nourishment,  and  increase. 
By  incessant  practice  it  becomes  a  habit  or  dis- 
position ;  and  perfected  by  mystical  initiation,  and 
fixed  by  love,   it  cannot  fail. 


32  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

Clement  writes  :  **Man  is  dear  to  God,  because 
he  is  God's  workmanship.  God  commanded  the 
creation  of  other  beings,  but  He  fashioned  with 
His  own  hands  man — breathing  into  him  that 
which  was  pecuHar  to  Himself  Therefore  that 
which  was  fashioned  by  God  after  His  own  image 
was  created  by  Him — whether  chosen  on  its  own 
account,  or  on  account  of  something  else.  If 
chosen  on  its  own  account,  God  who  is  goodness 
loves  that  which  is  good  ;  and  that  which  is  called 
the  inspiration  or  breathing  of  God  is  the  interior 
charm  rendering  man  beloved  of  God.  If  chosen 
on  account  of  something  else,  God's  only  motive 
for  creating  him  was  that,  apart  from  his  exist- 
ence, God  could  not  be  a  good  Creator,  and 
man  could  not  attain  the  knowledge  of  God." 
Elsewhere  Clement  says  :  "  Knowledge  lies  in 
illumination,  and  the  end  of  knowledge  is  rest  ; 
and  this  is  the  ultimate  object  of  desire." 

Naturally,  Clement  came  to  think  of  the 
Christian  life  as  consisting  of  a  twofold  character 
— a  lower  and  a  higher  life.  The  former  lay  in 
obedience  to  the  Christian  rule,  and  in  this  lower 
life  hope  and  fear  alternated.  While  by  no 
means  the  ideal,  this  life  was  typical  of  the  vast 
majority    of   Christians.     The    higher    and    ideal 


"I  HAVE  CALLED  YOU  FRIENDS"  2>2> 
Christian  life  was  one  of  full  understanding  of, 
and  communion  with  God — a  life  in  which  the 
soul  joyfully  surrendered  to  the  divine.  This 
surrender,  which  brought  ecstatic  joy,  was  the 
one  utterly  desirable  end  of  human  endeavour  ; 
and  only  those  who  had  grown  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  Son  of  God  to  the  stature  of  the  perfect 
man  might  attain  it.  Clement  adds  that  this 
perfection  consists  in  an  abiding  communion  with 
God  through  the  Great  High  Priest,  and  "in 
being  as  like  unto  the  Lord  as  can  be."  The 
mystic  is  described  by  Clement  as  one  who  is 
superior  to  anger  and  desire,  which  are  both 
equally  irrational.  He  loves  the  creature  only 
through  the  God  and  Maker  of  all  things,  and 
he  has  acquired  a  habit  or  disposition  of  self- 
control,  unattended  by  effort,  after  the  likeness 
of  his  Lord.  He  unites  knowledge  to  faith  and 
love,  and  is  therefore  one  in  his  judgment. 
Being  formed  into  a  perfect  man  after  the  image 
of  the  Lord,  he  is  truly  spiritual,  and  worthy 
to  be  called  brother  by  the  Lord.  At  once,  he 
is  a  friend  and  a  son  of  God. 

Dr.  Inge  has  pointed  out  that  the  doctrine 
of  "deification"  found  its  way  into  the  scheme 
of  Christian  mysticism   through   the  teaching    of 

3 


34  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

Clement ;  but  it  would,  perhaps,  be  more  correct 
to  say  that  Clement  only  seized  upon  and 
emphasized,  somewhat  too  unguardedly  and  too 
unreservedly,  certain  aspects  of  Pauline  mysti- 
cism. Clement  constantly  refers  to  the  statement 
that  God  formed  man  in  His  image  and  after 
His  likeness,  and  explains  this  to  mean  that 
man  at  his  birth  receives  the  image,  but  only 
acquires  the  likeness  gradually,  and  as  he  draws 
nearer  to  Christian  perfection.  "  Christ  alone," 
says  Clement,  "  who  is  exempt  from  passions 
and  affections,  is  at  once  in  the  image  and  after 
the  likeness."  Clement,  however,  is  not  careful 
enough  in  preserving  the  distinction  he  notes, 
and  he  sometimes  speaks  of  the  mystic  or  perfect 
Christian  as  formed  in  the  4mage  and  after  the 
likeness  of  God.  By  knowing  God,  man  may 
be  assimilated  to  God,  and  by  the  indwelling 
of  the  Word,  may  even  become  God.  The  union 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  with  the  soul  of  man  enables 
the  mystic  to  perfect  within  him  the  likeness 
of  the  divine  image;  and  ''the  image  of  God," 
says  Clement,  ''  is  His  Word."  The  mystic's 
whole  life  is  prayer  and  converse  with  God, 
and  although  to  speak  of  the  soul  as  "  training 
itself  to  be  God  "  is  doubtless  open  to  objection. 


THE    WORK    OF    PERFECTION  35 

the  idea  which  it  embodies  is  essentially  a  true 
one,  and,  as  an  ideal,  ought  to  be  present  before 
the  mind  and  imagination  of  all  Christians. 

Clement  teaches  that  the  mystic  having  passed 
through  the  successive  stages  of  initiation  will 
arrive  at  the  highest  place  of  rest,  in  which  he 
will  contemplate  God  face  to  face  with  full 
knowledge  and  understanding  "in  the  Holy 
Mountain  of  the  Lord,  in  the  Church  above. 
There  are  the  divine  philosophers,  the  true 
Israelites,  the  pure  in  heart,  in  whom  is  no 
guile — no  longer  remaining  in  the  Hebdomas 
of  rest,  but  by  active  well-doing,  after  the  Divine 
Image,  looking  up  to  the  inheritance  in  the 
Ogdoas."  Advancing  continually  in  the  work 
of  perfection,  the  Mystic  "  hastens  through  the 
Holy  Hebdomas,  to  the  Father's  Habitation, 
the  Mansion  of  the  Lord,  about  to  become,  so 
to  speak,  an  eternally  permanent  light  for  ever 
unchangeable." 

In  setting  forth  the  progressive  realisation  of 
the  higher  Christian  life,  Clement  employs  some 
of  the  ideas  and  language  of  the  Greek  mysteries 
with  which  he  was  familiar.  In  particular,  he 
insists  upon  the  place  and  power  of  purgative 
discipline.      It  is  only  the  pure  in  heart  to  whom 


36  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

divine  illumination  is  given ;  they,  and  they 
only,  can  enter  the  shrine.  In  order  to  attain 
this  purity,  the  soul  must  be  purged  from  the 
dross  of  this  world,  thus  escaping  the  snare  of 
sensual  pleasure  and  self-satisfied  ease.  A 
separation  without  regret  from  the  body  and 
its  passions,  says  Clement,  is  not  only  a  sacrifice 
acceptable  to  God,  but  it  is  essential  to  the 
higher  life  of  the  spirit.  Clement  writes : 
"  The  soul  of  the  mystic  must  be  denuded  of 
the  material  skin,  freed  from  bodily  trifling  and 
all  the  passions  which  vain  and  false  opinions 
engender,  and  having  put  away  fleshly  lusts 
must  be  consecrated  to  the  light.  He  begins 
the  purgative  process  by  confession,  and  the 
contemplative  process  by  analysis.  ...  If,  then, 
w^e  cast  ourselves  into  the  greatness  of  Christ, 
and  go  forward  with  purity  into  profundity,  we 
shall  approach  to  the  notion  of  the  Almighty, 
knowing,  indeed,  not  what  He  is,  but  what  He 
is  not."  Clement  adds  that  we  are  unable,  of 
ourselves,  to  attain  to  this  knowledge  :  it  is 
the  gift  of  God  through   His  Son. 

Of  cleansing  through  the  Word  and  growth 
in  the  grace  of  illumination,  Clement  writes 
thus  :  "  Our  sins  are  forgiven  by  one  sovereign 


PURGATION  37 

medicine,  which  is  baptism  according  to  the 
Word  ;  in  this  we  are  cleansed  from  all  our 
sins  and  immediately  pass  from  our  evil  state. 
This  is  one  grace  of  illumination,  for  no  longer 
is  our  way  of  life  after  the  manner  in  which  we 
walked  before  we  were  cleansed,  because  know- 
ledge grows  with  illumination — enlightening  the 
understanding.  Thus  we  who  were  untaught 
are  now  called  disciples."  Or  again  :  ''  It  is 
called  '  washing,'  for  by  it  we  are  cleansed  from 
our  sins ;  '  grace,'  for  by  it  the  punishment  due 
to  our  sins  is  forgiven  ;  '  illumination,'  for  by 
it  we  see  that  holy  saving  Light,  and  our  sight 
is  made  keen  to  see  the  Divine  nature  ;  *  per- 
fection,' for  nothing  is  wanting  to  the  soul  that 
knows  God."  Elsewhere  Clement  sums  up  the 
process  thus  :  "  Being  baptised,  we  are  illuminated, 
being  illuminated,  we  are  adopted  ;  being  adopted, 
we  are  perfected  ;  being  perfected,  we  are  made 
immortal."  Always,  Clement  maintains  that 
"  the  Word  is  the  source  of  all  the  true 
knowledge  to  which  man  attains  "  ;  "  the  wisdom 
of  God  "  ;  "  the  genuine  wisdom,  the  sanctification 
of  knowledge";  ''the  person  of  the  revealed 
truth"  ;  "  the  person  or  face  of  God,  by  which 
He  is  brought  to  light  or  revealed/' 


>/ 


38  CLEMENT   OF   ALEXANDRIA 

Purgation,  Clement  teaches,  is  the  means 
by  which  purity  is  gained,  and  purity  is  a  pre- 
liminary to  positive  holiness.  Hence,  Clement 
assigns  no  mean  place  to  the  discipline  of  fasting, 
which  purifies  the  soul  from  matter,  and  renders 
both  body  and  soul  pure  and  light  to  receive 
the  divine  disclosures.  Mystically,  he  tells  us, 
fasting  shows  that  as  life  in  each  individual  is 
supported  by  food,  and  not  to  be  nourished  by 
food  is  a  symbol  of  death,  so  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  fast  from  worldly  things  that  we 
may  be  dead  to  them,  while  partaking  of  divine 
food  we  may  live  to  God.  Purity  is  then  not 
simply  the  absence  of  evil,  but  the  presence  of 
good.  '*  Purity  is  to  think  holy  things."  With- 
out this,  no  true  knowledge,  no  mystical  illu- 
mination is  possible.  This,  and  this  only,  is 
the  one  thing  needful,  though  prayer  and  patient 
study  of  Scripture  (which  Clement  teaches  as 
admitting  of  a  fourfold  interpretation),  go  hand 
in  hand  with   it. 

Further,  according  to  Clement,  the  more  a  man 
loves,  the  more  deeply  does  he  penetrate  into 
God.  The  loving  soul  will  make  his  whole  life 
a  continued  act  of  prayer,  for  he  knows  that  he 
is  living  always  in  the  presence  of  God.     Without 


THE    MYSTIC   GOAL  39 

love,  no  course  of  purgation  or  discipline  will 
bring  the  soul  to  perfection.  Perfection  is  at- 
tained only  when  the  soul  hangs  upon  the  Lord 
through  faith,  and  knowledge,  and,  especially, 
love.  Mystical  knowledge  is  given  only  to 
those  who  love  much. 

The  final  state  of  the  mystic  is  perpetual 
contemplation  of  God,  and  in  this  his  blessedness 
consists.  The  soul,  says  Clement,  contemplates 
no  longer  in  a  mirror  or  through  a  glass,  but 
looks  eternally  upon  the  vision  in  all  its  clear- 
ness— the  vision  with  which  the  soul,  smitten 
with  boundless  love,  can  never  be  filled.  To 
hold  intercourse  with  God  eternally,  is  the  final 
operation  of  the  mystic.  He  rests  in  the  holy 
mountain  of  the  Lord  together  with  the  Church 
above. 

Of  those  who  have  studied  with  patience  and 
sympathetic  insight  the  mystical  teaching  of 
Clement,  few  will  be  found  to  dispute  the  pro- 
nouncement of  Dr.  Bigg,  that  among  Christian 
writers,  none  till  very  recent  times  has  so  clear 
and  grand  a  conception  of  the  development 
of  the  spiritual  life.  He  was  a  master  of  that 
spiritual  science  which  treats  of  the  evolution 
or    development    of    humanity    by    the    Interior 


40  CLEMENT    OF    ALEXANDRIA 

Way  towards    God  who    is  the    Beginning    and 

End  of  all. 

Perhaps  no  study  of  Clement  could  furnish 
us  with  a  more  faithful  knowledge  of  his  mystical 
teaching  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  of  the 
following  prayer  : 

"  O  Lord,  grant  that  we,  who  follow  Thy 
injunctions,  may  perfect  the  likeness  of  Thy 
image.  .  .  .  Grant  that  we  all,  living  in 
Thy  peace,  translated  into  Thy  City,  safely 
sailing  through  the  waves  of  sin,  may  be  tran- 
quilly borne  along  together  with  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  ineffable  Wisdom  ;  and  day  and 
night  until  the  perfect  day,  may  praise  with 
thanksgiving,  and  give  thanks  with  praise,  to 
the  only  Father  and  Son  .  .  .  together  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  all  things  in  one ;  in  Whom 
are  all  things ;  through  Whom  all  things  are 
one ;  through  Whom  is  eternity  ;  Whose 
mernbers   we  all  are.     Amen," 


CHAPTER    IV 
DIONYSIUS  THE  AREOPAGITE 

DiONYSius  has  been  called  by  Vaughan  ''the 
mythical  hero  of  mysticism,"  for,  although  we 
know  that  the  author  of  the  treatises  and  letters 
which  have  come  down  to  us  under  the  name 
of  Dionysius  was  not  St.  Paul's  Athenian 
convert,  yet  both  the  date  and  nationality  of 
the  monk  or  priest  who  wrote  them  are  shrouded 
in  mystery.  Whoever  he  was,  he  effectually 
suppressed  his  own  individuality  by  ascribing 
his  writings  to  Dionysius  the  Areopagite.  It 
is  still  convenient  to  allow  him  the  name  he 
assumed. 

Unlike  his  master  Hierotheus,  Dionysius  aims 
at  a  constructive  philosophy  of  Christian  truth, 
and  in  his  system  the  Platonic  elements  are 
very  marked.  Influenced  greatly  by  the  teaching 
of  Proclus,  he  sought  to  assimilate  the  finest 
spirit  of  Neo-Platonism  to  the  current  statements 

41 


42  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

of  Christianity.       Christianity,   he  holds,   rightly 

understood,     is     the    one    perfect    and    absolute 

philosophy. 

Starting  from  a  conception  of  God  as  the 
ground  or  being  of  all  that  is,  Dionysius  affirms 
that  as  all  things  have  come  from  God,  so  the 
goal  of  the  whole  creation  is  return  to  God. 
"  All  things  flow  out  from  God,  and  all  will 
ultimately  return  to  God."  His  conception  of 
creation  is  a  modification  of  the  Neo-Platonic 
theory  of  emanation,  which  "  assumes  the  world 
to  be  an  effluence  or  eradiation  of  God,  in  such 
manner  that  the  remoter  emanation  possesses 
ever  a  lower  degree  of  perfection  than  that  which 
precedes  it  ;  and  represents  consequently  the 
totality  of  existence  as  a  descending  series." 
Thus  to  Dionysius,  everything  that  exists  is 
in  its  degree  "a  symbolic  manifestation  of  the 
super-existent,"  though  God  Himself  is  beyond 
all  negation  and  affirmation.  The  whole  world 
is  a  divine  allegory,  furnishing  us  with  a  true 
though  partial  idea  of  the  nature  of  God. 

The  outer  world 
Marks  but  the  limit  of  the  human  soul's 
Advance,  developing  her  infinite. 
O  blessed  promise  of  the  time  to  come ! 


THE    UNITY    OF   GOD  43 

At  each  succeeding  stage  more  lofty  types  — 
A  wider  world — significance  more  deep — 
Till,  in  the  full  possession  of  itself, 
The  soul  attains,  from  every  type  set  free, 
The  supra-conscious  life  of  pure  repose 
And  unveil'd  vision  into  God  the  All. 

While  Dionysius  teaches  that  the  whole 
universe  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  allegory  of  God, 
he  is  careful  to  point  out  that  God  Himself  is 
the  Absolute,  and  beyond  both  essence  and 
knowledge.  We  can,  indeed,  speak  of  Him  by 
different  analogies,  though  many  mystics  have 
persistently  endeavoured  to  rise  beyond  these — 
leaving  all  symbols  and  metaphors  behind.  It 
is  a  supreme  truth  that  "the  One  who  is  said 
to  become  multiform  "  in  the  world  must  embrace 
all  that  is  good  and  true  and  beautiful,  and  hence 
we  find  Dionysius  affirming  that  "the  Non- 
Existent  also  must  participate  in  the  Good  and 
Beautiful."  But  the  Mystic  cannot  rest  in  these 
finite  embodiments  or  manifestations  of  the 
Good  and  Beautiful,  because  "  the  Absolute 
Good  and  Beautiful  is  honoured  by  abstracting 
all  qualities  from  it."  It  is  the  ''supra-rational 
Unity  "  that  the  Mystic  seeks — that  *'  Unity 
which    unifies    every    unity."      Being   and    Life, 


44  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

Wisdom  and  Beauty  are  manifestations  of  God, 
but  God  Himself  is  none  of  these. 

Accordingly,  to  Dionysius,  advance  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  is  not  made  by  any  affirmation 
concerning  Him,  for  no  name  can  adequately 
convey  a  knowledge  of  God's  essential  being  ;  it 
is,  therefore,  only  by  a  sequence  of  symbols  and 
rites  that  the  soul  can  rise  to  the  reality  of  God. 
The  nearer  we  draw  to  the  Centre  and  Fount 
of  Light,  says  Dionysius,  the  clearer  and  truer 
becomes  our  apprehension.  The  evolution  or 
progression  of  the  spiritual  principle  towards 
perfection  can  be  effected  only  by  the  love  of 
God,  and  it  is  only  by  the  love  of  God  that  we 
can  gain  a  true  knowledge  of  Him.  But  when 
this  is  attained,  there  is  no  joy  equal  to  the  joy 
of  the  accompanying  great  enlightenment. 

The  return  of  the  soul  to  God,  which  Dionysius 
^\    calls   ''  deification,"   is  the  consummation   of  the 
'    creature's    life — a   consummation  aspired   to  un- 
ceasingly.      The    soul    waits   and   watches    until 
the  day  break  and  the  shadows  flee  away,  and 
•-     God  be  all  in  all. 

To  call  Dionysius  a  pantheist,  as  has  often 
been  done,  is  a  mistake.  God  alone  has  life  in 
Himself;  although    the  world    is    an  outcome  of 


UNITY    IN    DIVERSITY  45 

that  life,  and  indeed,  a  necessary  expression  of 
the  Divine  Being.  It  is  only  as  God  dwells  in 
any  being  that  such  being  possesses  real  exist- 
ence, the  life  of  the  creature  being  determined 
by  the  relation  which  it  sustains  to  the  Centre 
and  Fount  of  life.  Divine  immanence  is  in  no 
sense  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  cosmology 
of  Dionysius,  who  goes  so  far,  indeed,  in  main- 
taining the  transcendent  character  of  God,  that 
he  is  led  to  make  the  extravagant  statement  : 
"  Being  is  in  Him,  He  is  not  in  being."  God,  he 
repeatedly  says,  is  the  unity  which  comprehends 
all  differences — not  abolishes  them,  and  as  He  is 
before  all  things  so  He  is  the  end  of  all  things. 
But  to  predicate  anything  of  God,  is  really  to  veil 
Him,  because  He  is  so  far  beyond  anything  that 
it  is  possible  for  man  to  affirm.  We  know  more 
of  God  the  more  of  Him  we  possess  ;  we  possess 
more  of  God,  the  nearer  we  dwell  to  the  Centre. 

Concerning  the  mystical  via  negativa  and  the 
via  affirmativa,  Dionysius  has  much  to  say  of 
interest  and  value.  The  former  is  the  ascending 
process,  or  the  return  journey  to  God  by  means 
of  abstraction  and  analysis.  The  latter  is  the 
descending  process,  or  the  outflow  through  finite 
existences.      As  Dr.    Inge  has  pointed  out,   the 


46  DIONYSIUS   THE    AREOPAGITE 

conclusion  of  the  former  is  **  God  is  all,"  the 
conclusion  of  the  latter  is  "  all  is  not  God." 
Thus,  as  we  have  already  noted,  anything  we 
may  assert  concerning  God  only  serves  to  veil 
Him,  while  anything  we  deny  concerning  Him 
results  in  a  partial  unveiling. 

The  highest  as  well  as  the  truest  knowledge 
of  God  is  attained,  according  to  Dionysius,  in  a 
mystic  ignorance.  The  mystic,  he  says,  ''must 
leave  behind  all  things  both  in  the  sensible  and 
in  the  intelligible  worlds,  till  he  enters  into  the 
darkness  of  ignorance  that  is  truly  mystical." 
This  is  a  divine  state  of  darkness,  it  is  dark 
only  through  excess  of  light,  It  has  been  de- 
scribed by  the  apostle  Paul  as  *'the  light  unap- 
proachable." Perhaps  in  no  respect  has  the 
influence  of  Dionysius  been  more  marked  than 
in  his  teaching  and  doctrine  of  ''  the  divine 
dark."  The  mystic  believes  that  clouds  and 
darkness  surround  the  great  white  throne,  and 
that  God  dweileth  in  thick  darkness,  beyond  the 
light  of  setting  suns.  Thus  it  is  imperative  for 
the  mystic  to  seek  to  ascend  beyond  the  ignor- 
ance which  veils  itself  in  words  to  a  true  mystic 
ignorance  in  which  "  darkness  "  God  dwells  and 
may  be  found.     As  our  knowledge  of  God  is  best 


"THE    DIVINE    DARK"  47 

expressed,  according  to  Dionysius,  by  abstraction, 
by  negations,  so  the  mystic  aim  is  to  reach  the 
Divine  incomprehensible  unity  in  the  Divine 
obscurity.  This  is  essentially  a  spiritual  state, 
signifying  to  Dionysius  as  well  as  to  the  great 
mediaeval  mystics  who  were  profoundly  influenced 
by  him,  the  supreme  and  most  exalted  state 
possible  to  the  soul — the  intimate  communion 
with  the  Universal — the  union  of  the  spirit  of 
man  with  the  Spirit  of  God.  To  be  glorified 
in  God  and  by  God  is  the  end  for  which  man 
was  created,  and  the  mystic  can  rest  in  no 
lesser  beatification  than  this. 

This  was  the  belief  of  Dionysius,  and  we  are 
not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  that  he  urges  the 
necessity  of  denuding  the  mind  and  stripping 
the  soul  of  all  sensuous  images,  which  can  only 
enmesh  and  ensnare.  We  must  rigorously  turn 
aside,  not  only  from  the  fashions  of  this  world, 
which  are  fleeting  and  cunning  deceits,  but 
emancipate  ourselves  from  the  allurements  of 
the  senses,  and  transcend  even  our  intellectual 
knowledge  of  God.  Dionysius  calls  for  the 
cultivation  of  a  passionless  passivity  by  means 
of  which  the  soul  shall  realise  the  divine.  This 
is  the  one  thing  of  vital  import  to  the  mystic. 


48  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

To  hear  arid  to  see  and  to  know,  and,  immersed  where  the 

Hghts  never  fail. 
Confess  that  at  length  we  have  truly  transcended  the  world 

of  the  veil ; 
We   have   pass'd  through  the  region   of  omen,  and  entered 

the  land  of  sight ; 
Oh,  thanks  be  to  God   for  the   pillar  of   smoke  by  day  and 

the  pillar  of  fire  by  night; 
The  voice  in  the  cloud  and  the  burning  bush  and  the  holy 

places  trod; 
For  the  soften'd  grace  of  the  shaded  face  and  the  back  of 

the  Lord  our  God  ; 
For    the    shadow'd    home   and   the    light    beyond,    for    the 

secret  pulses  stirr'd 
By   the   parable   dim   and    the    mystic   hymn   and   the   first 

sense  of  the  Word  ! 
But   O  for   the   end   and   the   vision,  beyond   the    gate   and 

the  way, 
The  light  which  the  eye  cannot  picture,  repose  in  activity  free  ! 
The  veils  of  the  world   are   about    me,  sad  dreams   of   the 

night  and  the  day. 

But  I  look  to  see  !  ^ 

The  soul,  according  to  Dionysius,  is  bipartite, 
and  possesses  a  higher  and  lower  faculty.  The 
higher  faculty  is  able  to  apprehend  the  divine 
image  immediately,  the  lower  faculty  only  by 
means  of  symbols.  Despite  the  necessity  for 
rising  above  symbolic  representations,  we  cannot 
dispense  with  symbols,  for  they  are— 

^  A.  E.  Waite,  A  Book  of  Mystery  and  Vision. 


SYMBOL   AND   SACRAMENT  49 

The  ministries  of  deep 
And  many-sided  emblems  which  exist 
For  man  alone,  developing  for  him 
Resources  in  the  measure  of  his  need, 
His  insight,  inquest,  and   experiment. 

It  has  been  already  suggested  that,  as  Dionysius 
states,  material  things  are  symbols  of  the  Divine 
reality,  and  that  the  symbolism  of  Nature  is  a 
partial  revelation  of  God.  Symbols  can  only 
shadow  forth  figuratively  and  darkly  ;  and  it  is 
only  the  fruits  of  the  valley  that  v^e  attain  through 
them,  but  they  prepare  us  for  receiving  the  holy 
fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Life.  They  give  us  true, 
albeit  partial  impressions  of  the  Divine  character ; 
and  it  is  by  means  of  earthly  things  that  we  learn 
the  first  secrets  of  the  heavenly.  We  rise  from 
"white  sacraments  and  parables,"  until  we  reach 
the  One  Eternal  Truth  amid  the  white  radiance 
of  Eternity.  To  the  eye  of  the  mystic,  the  whole 
creation  is  a  Divine  allegory  ;  and  in  this  sense, 
all  that  exists  is  a  symbolic  manifestation  and 
revelation  of  the  Fount  and  Source  of  Life. 

Tradition  and  Scripture  itself,  Dionysius 
teaches,  are  to  be  read  symbolically,  for  only  in 
this  way  can  their  hidden  truths  be  revealed. 
The  same  principle    of  interpretation    Dionysius 

4 


so  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

applies  to  the  liturgy  and  offices  of  the  Church, 
but  here,  it  is  to  be  noted,  Christ — the  Incarnate 
Son — is  the  One,  True,  and  Divine  Illuminator. 
From  the  dim  shades  of  time  the  Divine  Hiero- 
phant  leads  the  soul  on  to  the  burning  bliss  of 
the  Eternal  Light. 

Undoubtedly,  the  teaching  of  Dionysius  under 
this  head  is  open  to  misconstruction,  and  it  has 
seemed  inconsistent  to  not  a  few  careful  students. 
He  writes  of  Christ  as  the  Cause  of  all  things, 
filling  all  things  and  sustaining  all  the  separate 
parts  of  the  universe,  (in  accordance  with  the 
perfect  whole,)  by  His  essential  Deity  which  in- 
cludes all  the  parts  and  the  full  whole  in  Itself. 
Being  the  prime  Author  of  perfection.  It  is  perfect 
in  the  imperfect,  while  in  perfect  things  It  is 
imperfect,  because  alike  in  dignity  and  origin 
It  transcends  their  perfection.  It  is  the  Being 
which  completely  inhabits  all  beings  perfectly, 
while  at  the  same  time  It  is  wholly  exalted  above 
all  beings.  At  once  It  determines  all  the  prin- 
ciples of  things  and  stands  above  all  principles 
and  ordinances.  In  a  word.  It  is  exalted  over  all 
things.  Thus,  as  Dorner  pointed  out,  the  con- 
ception of  Dionysius  regarding  the  participation 
of  Christ  in  the  transcendence  of  God  and  the 


THE    MYSTICAL   LADDER  Si 

conception  of  a  Divine,  super-essential,  formless 
essence,  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  do  justice 
to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Incarnation  or  to 
assign  to  Jesus  a  distinct  and  unique  place  in 
the  universe.  Hence,  the  Logos  is  violently 
identified  in  his  system  with  Jesus,  who  is,  how- 
ever, the  Revealer,  the  Illuminator,  and  the  great 
High  Priest.  Upon  this  Dionysius  is  emphatic  ; 
Christ  is  the  Light-Bearer  and  the  Light-Bringer 
to  the  soul.  Dionysius  regards  the  technical 
terms  of  the  Greek  mysteries — purification,  illu- 
mination, and  perfection — the  three  stages  in  the 
mystical  ladder,  as  representing,  or  as  being 
represented  by  the  three  sacraments  of  Baptism, 
the  Eucharist,  and  Unction.  They  signify  re- 
spectively the  cleansing  of  the  soul,  the  partici- 
pation of  the  soul  in  divine  knowledge,  and  the 
actual  communion  and  union  of  the  soul  with 
God.  The  three  embrace  the  science  of  the 
return  of  the  spirit  of  man  to  its  source. 

Of  the  mystical  union  of  the  soul  with  God, 
of  the  absorption  of  the  many  into  the  One, 
Dionysius,  while  fervently  believing  it  to  be  the 
ultimate  end  and  consummation  of  mystic  desire, 
as  is  obvious  from  what  has  been  previously 
affirmed,   does   not   always  write  explicitly.      He 


52  DIONYSIUS   THE   AREOPAGITE 

emphatically  believes,  however,  that  walking  the 
inner  way,  living  in  the  presence  and  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  and  constrained  by  a  passionate  love 
of  God,  the  initiated  soul  may  attain  even  in  this 
body  of  humiliation  a  height  surpassing  far  the 
region  bounded  by  vision,  and  in  the  end  become 
truly  one  with  God.  The  love  of  the  soul  for 
God  becomes,  in  the  end,  one  with  the  Love 
of  God,  which,  says  Dionysius,  is  *'  an  eternal 
circle  from  goodness,  through  goodness,  and  to 
goodness." 


CHAPTER   V 

MASTER  ECKHART 

Many  critics  of  mysticism  have  alleged  that  the 
only  pathway  to  the  universal,  acknowledged  by 
the  mystic,  is  that  of  the  negation  of  the  indi- 
vidual. As  we  have  had  occasion  to  observe 
already,  this  is  a  pure  misapprehension,  where  it 
is  not  a  wilful  perversion  of  mysticism.  That 
this  false  idea  has  existed  so  long  is  doubtless 
due  to  the  contradictions,  sometimes  real,  but 
more  often  apparent,  in  the  language  employed 
by  mystical  writers.  To  avoid  this  altogether 
is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  "  because  the  phrases 
that  do  well  enough  in  space  and  time  are  in- 
adequate with  the  things  of  eternity.  There  the 
contradictions  must  meet  and  be  reconciled."^ 

Eckhart  has  suffered  much  on  account  of,  not 
the  obscurity,  but  the  apparent  contradictions  in 
his  statement  of  the  truth.  He  wrote  in  German, 
and  for  the  general  public  ;  and  as  Dr.  Inge  has 

^  Professor  Ritchie,  Philosophical  Studies^  p.   241. 
53 


54  MASTER    ECKHART 

pointed  out,   Eckhart's  ''desire  to  be  intelligible 

to    the    general    reader    led    him    to    adopt    an 

epigrammatic,     antithetic     style,     and     to     omit 

qualifying    phrases.      This    is    one    reason    why 

he  laid  himself  open  to  so  many  accusations  of 

heresy." 

As  a  Dominican  monk,  sometime  prior  of  Erfurt 
and  vicar-general  of  Thuringen  in  later  years, 
vicar-general  of  Bohemia,  he  lived  a  strenuous 
and  consecrated  life.  He  was  influenced  greatly 
by  the  writings  of  Dionysius  and  Augustine, 
Erigena  and  Aquinas  ;  and  the  inner  life  of  his 
spirit  was  greatly  enlarged  by  the  societies  of  those 
of  his  day  who  followed  the  gleam  of  the  inward 
light.  A  few  years  before  his  death  he  preached 
frequently  at  Cologne — his  discourses  attracting 
much  attention.  They  were  as  strong  spirit 
music,  hard  for  tongue  to  utter  and  difficult 
for  ear  to  understand. 

Eckhart,  in  common  with  all  the  mystics,  re- 
gards the  supreme  satisfaction  of  the  soul  as 
dependent  upon  a  true  knowledge  of  God.  He 
grounds  the  possibility  of  such  knowledge  on 
the  fact  that  God  being  immanent  as  well  as 
transcendent,  may  be  known  in  all  things.  To 
apprehend    God    better    in    one    thing    than    in 


DOCTRINE    OF   GOD  55 

another,  is  perhaps  the  lot  of  the  many  ;  but  the 
more  excellent  way  is  to  apprehend  God  every- 
where, "for  to  that  end  do  all  things  exist." 
In  God,  says  Eckhart,  all  things  are  one,  from 
angel  to  spider,  yet  not  all  the  fulness  of  the 
creatures  can  express  God  any  more  than  a  drop 
of  water  can  express  the  ocean. 

Notwithstanding  the  soul's  necessity  of  a  know- 
ledge of  God,  it  is  better,  says  Eckhart,  to  be 
silent  about  Him  :  ''  God  cannot  be  named,  be- 
cause no  man  can  say  anything  or  understand 
anything  about  Him.  If  I  say,  '  God  is  good," 
it  is  not  true  ;  nay  further,  I  am  good,  God  is  not 
good.  I  might  further  say,  '  I  am  better  than 
God,'  for  whatever  is  good  may  become  better, 
and  whatever  may  become  better  may  become 
best.  Now  God  is  not  good,  because  He  cannot 
become  better;  and  since  He  cannot  become 
better  He  cannot  become  best,  for  these  things 
'good,'  'better,'  and  'best'  are  far  from  God, 
since  He  is  above  all.  .  .  .  Thou  canst  under- 
stand nothing  about  God,  because  He  is  above 
all  understanding." 

Now,  such  teaching  as  this  has  its  dangers, 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  mystic  is  led  to 
such  extravagances   of  statement  as  :    "  God   in 


56  MASTER   ECKHART 

Himself  was  not  God — in  the  creature  only  hath 
He  become  God."  Thus  the  whole  creation  is 
an  expression  of  the  divine  life  and  personality, 
and  to  apprehend  and  to  share  in  this  is  man's 
highest  good.  That  man  to  whom  God  is  seen 
alike  in  all  things  is  on  the  way  to  the  attain- 
ment of  the  soul's  purpose.  Yet  this  achieve- 
ment is  in  reality  only  the  first  sense  of  the 
soul's  divine  quest.  To  trace  the  correspond- 
ences in  the  material  world  with  the  high  and 
supreme  truth  beyond  is  indeed  a  praiseworthy 
occupation  ;  but,  as  Saint-Martin  asks  :  ''  If  this 
world  will  seem  to  us,  after  our  death,  as  nothing 
but  magical  illusion,  why  do  we  regard  it  other- 
wise at  present  ?  The  nature  of  things  does 
not  change." 

Despite  the  foregoing,  the  knowledge  of 
divine  truth  and  its  apprehension  by  man  is 
desired  by  God,  though  it  can  be  attained  only 
through  the  abandonment  of  earthly  things. 
Man  never  desires  anything  so  earnestly,  affirms 
Eckhart,  as  God  desires  to  bring  a  man  to  Him- 
self that  he  may  know  Him — the  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  the  mystery  of  divine  and  spiritual 
things.  In  this  divine  disclosure  nothing  is 
lacking;    ''it  is  full  and  complete,   and   God   is 


THE    SOUL   AND   GOD  57 

constrained    to    give    it    thee,    since     He    cannot 
cease  till   He  hath  given  thee  Himself." 

Eckhart  writes  :  "  As  the  soul,  through  God, 
loses  itself  and  abandons  all  things,  so  does  it 
find  itself  again  in  God.  When  it  knows  God 
it  knows  itself — as  well  as  all  the  things  from 
which  it  has  disjoined  itself— perfectly  in  God." 
This  is  simply  another  form  of  the  mystic 
doctrine  of  dying  to  self  and  living  in  God. 
By  abandoning  all  things  the  soul  finds  itself  in 
God,  for  *'  in  every  man  who  hath  utterly 
abandoned  self,  God  must  communicate  Him- 
self according  to  all  His  power."  Nothing  is 
more  deplorable  in  the  life  of  man  than  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  man  himself  who  prevents 
the  approach  of  the  divine.  Thus  an  unhesi- 
tating abandonment  is  the  nearest  way  to  God. 
But  the  work  of  divine  union  can  only  be 
accomplished  by  a  strong  and  constant  resolu- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  soul  that  desires  it,  in 
true  humility  which  is  capable  of  utter  abase- 
ment. God  is  nigh  unto  us,  but  we  are  far 
from  Him ;  yet,  according  to  the  constitution 
of  His  nature,  God  must  give,  and  His  very 
essence  inclines  Him  to  give  His  good  gift  to 
us    when    we   are    humble,      The  mystic   knows 


58  MASTER   ECKHART 

that  if  ever    the    soul   is   to  know   God  it   must 

forget  itself — yea,  lose  itself,  for  when  the  soul 

knows  and  sees  itself  it  does  not  see  and  know 

God. 

This  knowledge  of  God,  Eckhart  teaches,  is 
confirmed  by  inner  experience.  ''  How  can  any 
external  revelation  help  me  unless  it  be  verified 
by  inner  experience  ?  The  last  appeal  must 
always  be  to  the  deepest  part  of  my  own  being." 
It  is  the  inner  voice  which  is  the  voice  of  God, 
and  to  hear  that  we  must  resolve  to  descend 
into  ourselves.  And  this  interior  light  of  our 
being  is  kindled  by  God  and  leads  us  to  Him. 

By  this  knowledge  of  God,   which   is  one    of 

''  the   mysteries  of  our  fundamental  being,"  the 

soul  of  man   is  enabled    to   return  to   its  divine 

source,  and  by  the  inward  secret  way  union  with 

-    God  is  made  possible. 

There  is,  moreover,  something  in  the  soul 
which  is  so  akin  to  God  that  it  is  one  with 
Him,  and  not  merely  united  with  Him.  "  I 
have  a  power  in  my  soul,"  writes  Eckhart, 
"which  is  thoroughly  susceptible  to  and  re- 
ceptible  of  God  :  I  am  as  certain  as  that  I  live 
that  nothing  whatever  is  so  near  to  me  as  God. 
God  is  nearer  to  me  than  I  am  to  myself."     The 


GOD    IN    TMP:    soul  59 

natural  abode  of  the  soul  is  God,  and  away  from 
Him  it  can  find  no  rest. 

In  storm,  in  darkness  and  in  stress, 
In  languor  and  deep  weariness, 
What  wonder  if,  o'er  life's  dark  deep- 
That  tossing  sea  which  dare  not  sleep — 
From  time  to  time  on  each  should  come 
An  exile's  sickness  for  his  home. 

**  That  which  God  works  in  the  simple  light  of 
the  soul  is  more  beautiful  and  more  pleasing  than 
all  the  other  works  which  He  performs  in  all 
creatures  ;  only  foolish  people  take  evil  for  good 
and  good  for  evil.  But  to  the  man  who  rightly 
understands,  the  one  work  which  God  effects 
in  the  soul  is  better  and  nobler  and  higher  than 
all  the  world,  for  through  that  light  comes  grace. 
This  never  comes  in  the  intelligence  or  in  the 
will  for  if  this  should  come  to  pass  the  intelli- 
gence and  the  will  would  need  to  transcend 
themselves."  In  another  place  Eckhart  says  : 
'*  Since  God  has  never  bestowed  any  gift  simply 
that  man  may  rest  in  the  possession  of  it,  and 
since  every  gift  He  has  bestowed  in  heaven  and 
on  earth  has  been  given  in  order  that  He  may  be 
able  to  give  one  gift  which  is  Himself,  so  ...  He 
will  prepare  us  for  the  one  gift,  which  is  Himself." 


6o  MASTER   ECKHART 

The  union  of  the  soul  with  God  takes  place, 
according  to  Eckhart,  in  **  the  little  spark/' 
This  *'  spark "  is  called  also  the  spirit  of  the 
soul.  There  is,  then,  an  experience  possible  to 
the  exercised  believer  in  which  he  realises  that  he 
has  become  one  spirit  with  the  Lord.  It  carries 
with  it  its  own  certainty,  a  deepening  certainty 
growing  out  of  the  mystic  consciousness  of 
divine  sonship.  Eckhart  constantly  emphasises 
the  mystical  doctrine  of  regeneration,  in  which 
divine  grace  aids  human  weakness,  and  by  the 
spirit  of  adoption  witnessing  with  our  spirit  seals 
us  as  sons  of  God.  That  which  is  the  essence 
of  all  creatures  is  eternally  a  divine  life  in  Deity, 
and  the  flaming  consummation  and  holy  per- 
fection of  such  a  life  proceeds  from  that  vital 
union  with  God  initiated  in  time  in  ''the  little 
spark."  This  spark,  says  Eckhart,  rejecteth  all 
creatures,  and  will  have  only  God  simply  as  He 
is  in  Himself.  The  union  is  so  truly  one  between 
life  and  life  that  Eckhart  enunciates  the  famous 
mystical  saying  :  *'  The  eye  with  which  I  see 
God  is  the  same  as  that  with  which  He  sees 
me."  Many  have  stumbled  at  this  word,  some 
have  even  wrested  it  to  their  own  destruction  ; 
but  the  mystics  of  every  age  have   understood 


"CHRIST    IN    YOU"  6i 

its  truth  and  accepted  it,  because,  as  Saint- 
Martin  has  said,  "  all  men  who  are  instructed 
in  fundamental  truths  speak  the  same  language, 
for  they  are  inhabitants  of  the  same  country." 

A  favourite  and  constantly  recurring  doctrine 
of  all  mystics  is  that  of  the  birth  of  the  Son  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  the  Christian.  Eckhart  states 
it  boldly  in  the  following  words  :  *'  When  the 
soul  is  freed  from  time  and  space,  the  Father 
sends  and  begets  His  Son  in  the  soul."  The 
Holy  Father  begets  the  divine  Son  in  us,  and 
"  as  fire  turns  all  that  it  touches  into  itself,  so 
the  birth  of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  soul  turns 
us  into  God,  so  that  God  no  longer  knows 
anything  in  us  but  His  Son." 

Such  language  as  this  is  doubtless  unguarded, 
but  the  profound  truth  it  embodies  is  central, 
and  Eckhart  himself  safeguards  the  doctrine  by 
his  teaching  concerning  the  necessity  of  the 
human  will  obeying  the  divine  behests  so  per- 
fectly and  gladly,  that  it  becomes  one  with  the 
will  of  God.  He  points  out  that  no  man  is  so 
boorish  or  stupid  or  awkward  that  he  cannot, 
by  God's  grace,  unite  his  will  wholly  and  entirely 
with  God's  will  ;  and  when  dealing  with  the 
problem   of  pain,    Eckhart  says  that  those  who 


62  MASTER   ECKHART 

accept  all  that  the  Lord  sends  as  the  very  best, 
remain  always  in  perfect  peace,  for  in  them 
God's  will  has  become  their  will.  This  is  incom- 
parably better  than  that  our  will  should  become 
God's  will.  The  ideal  to  set  before  us  is  the 
full  surrender  of  the  will :  *'  The  will  is  perfect 
when  it  has  gone  forth  from  itself,  and  is  formed 
into  the  will  of  God.  The  more  truly  this  is 
effected,  the  more  perfect  is  the  will.  In  such 
a  will  thou  canst  do  all  things."  The  union  of 
the  divine  and  human  will  is  a  work  which  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  the  fervent  and  per- 
sistent resolution  of  those  who  desire  it,  and  in 
fear  and  trembling  pray  that  God  will  work  His 
perfect  will  in  them  without  let  or  hindrance. 

Eckhart  insists  that  it  is  by  divine  grace  that 
we  are  united  to  the  divine  nature,  united  as  the 
Son  is  eternally  one  with  the  divine  nature.  If 
God,  says  Eckhart,  did  not  abide  with  and  in 
the  creatures,  they  must  necessarily  have  fallen 
back,  so  soon  as  they  were  created,  into  the 
nothingness  out  of  which  they  were  created ; 
and  in  order  that  God's  likeness  may  be  brought 
to  perfection  in  them,  "  God  alone  must  work 
in  them  without  hindrance."  In  this  way  the 
soul  is  brought  to  understand  with  God,  to  will 


DEADLY   SIN  63 

with  God,  and  to   love  with  God.     Tliis   is   the 
essence  of  perfection. 

Ahhough  Eckhart  has  no  systematic,  no  for- 
mulated doctrine  of  sin,  we  may  gather  up  and 
down  his  pages  sayings  showing  so  much  insight 
into  the  nature  and  character  of  moral  evil,  that 
we  are  constrained  to  admit  his  teaching  under 
this  head  to  be  very  profound.  Eckhart  goes 
much  further  than  many  of  the  mystics :  for, 
while  he  believes  that  for  every  soul  good  is 
the  fulfilment  of  God's  law,  and  evil  that  which 
is  opposed  thereto,  he  goes  deeper  when  he  says 
that  sin  which  is  deadly  separates  us  from  God. 
Thus,  not  only  does  sin  hinder  man  from  the 
attainment  of  light  and  truth  and  produce  con- 
fusion and  disorder  both  in  the  universe  and 
in  himself,  but  it  hides  God's  face  from  him. 
Eckhart  teaches  that  sin  is  not  only  derange- 
ment, but  the  death  of  the  soul.  As  the  natural 
place  of  the  soul  is  God,  and  as  sin  entering 
within  is  like  a  fire,  foreign  to  the  soul's  true 
essence,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  the  heart  of 
man  should  be  saddened  by  weariness  and 
afflicted  by  torment.  Again,  Eckhart  calls  sin 
a  sickness  of  the  faculties.  The  soul  constantly 
suffers   from    this   sickness,  and  languishes,   until 


64  MASTER   ECKHART 

it  is  perfectly  delivered  from  it  and  made  whole 
by  the  Divine  Physician  and  Repairer.  Sin  is 
also  a  blindness  of  the  sense — a  blindness  in 
which  man  can  neither  discriminate  nor  discern 
between  good  and  evil.  Sin  separates  us  from 
God,  who  is  the  life  of  the  soul  ;  therefore 
Eckhart  describes  it  as  a  death  of  all  graces. 
For,  if  the  soul  is  cut  off  from  the  source  of  all 
life,  it  must  inevitably  follow  that  the  fruits  and 
graces,  which  are  the  sign  and  expression  of 
vital  forces  working  within,  will  be  wanting. 
Where  sin  abounds  the  graces  of  the  soul  can 
never  be  found. 

We  ought  to  pray,  Eckhart  teaches,  both 
for  temporal  blessings  and  spiritual  virtues  ;  but 
he  takes  care  to  point  out  that  when  we  ask 
for  material  things  we  should  always  add,  "  if 
it  be  God's  will  and  if  it  be  for  my  soul's 
health."  When,  however,  we  pray  for  Christian 
virtues  and  graces,  "we  need  add  no  qualifica- 
tion, for  these  are  God's  own  working."  When 
asked  what  were  the  greatest  goods  that  God 
had  done  to  him,  Eckhart  said  they  were  these 
three  :  First,  that  the  lusts  and  desires  of  the 
flesh  had  been  taken  away  from  him  ;  second, 
that     the    divine    light    continually    shone    and 


ETHICS   OF   MYSTICISM  65 

gave  him  light  in  all  his  doings  ;   third,  that   he 
was  daily  renewed  in  virtue,  grace,  and  holiness. 

In  prayer  the  mystic  does  not  cry  to  the 
heavens,  he  does  not  call  to  a  God  far  off,  but 
to  One  who  is  within  the  soul,  an  "ever-present 
Deity."  He  can  pray,  therefore,  "  in  all  places 
and  among  all  persons,  in  the  street  as  well  as 
in  the  church."  Thus  the  life  of  the  mystic  is 
one  of  unceasing  and  prevailing  prayer. 

The  mysticism  of  Eckhart,  like  that  of  all 
true  initiates,  had  its  essentially  practical  effects 
in  character.  What  a  man  has  taken  in  by 
contemplation,  says  Eckhart,  that  he  pours  out 
in  love.  To  be  a  true  mystic,  one  need  not  go 
into  a  desert  and  fast;  "a  crowd  is  often  more 
lonely  than  a  wilderness,  and  small  things  harder 
to  do  than  great."  One  is  reminded  of  the  deep 
saying  of  Ewald,  that  the  true  mystic  never 
withdraws  himself  wilfully  from  the  business  of 
life — no,  not  even  from  the  smallest  business. 
If,  says  Eckhart,  a  man  were  in  an  ecstasy  like 
that  of  St.  Paul  when  he  was  caught  up  into  the 
third  heaven,  and  knew  of  a  poor  man  who  needed 
his  help,  he  ought  to  leave  his  ecstasy  and  help 
the  needy.  "  It  is  better  to  feed  the  hungry 
than  to  see  even  such  visions  as  St.  Paul  saw." 

5 


66  MASTER   ECKHART 

The  following  prayer  of  Eckhart  expresses 
very  truly  both  the  creed  and  character  of  the 
man : — ''  O  Almighty  and  Merciful  Creator  and 
Good  Lord,  be  merciful  to  me  for  my  miserable 
sins,  and  help  me  that  I  may  overcome  every 
temptation  and  shameful  lust,  and  may  be  able 
to  avoid  utterly,  in  thought  and  deed,  what 
Thou  forbiddest ;  and  give  me  grace  to  do  and 
to  hold  all  that  Thou  hast  commanded.  Help 
me  to  believe,  to  hope,  and  to  love,  and  in 
every  way  to  live  as  Thou  wiliest,  as  much 
as  Thou  wiliest,  and  what  Thou  wiliest." 


CHAPTER   VI 

RUYSBROECK 

Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  the  profound  insight 
into  spiritual  truths  which  his  writings  display, 
and  the  deep  mystical  teaching  of  Ruysbroeck, 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  his  lack  of  learning 
or  his  obscurity  of  thought.  Without  following 
M.  Maeterlinck  in  his  extravagant  eulogy  of 
Ruysbroeck,  it  must  be  admitted  that  his  great 
mystical  treatise,  Ordo  spiritualiuvi  nuptiarum,  is 
one  of  the  most  valuable  works  of  its  kind  that 
exists,  marking  as  it  does,  with  intense  force  and 
lofty  seriousness,  the  mystic  ascent,  and  describing 
with  extreme  precision  and  astonishing  fulness 
the  steps  in  the  way.  All  Ruysbroeck's  books, 
as  Maeterlinck  has  pointed  out,  ''  treat  exclusively 
of  the  same  science  :  a  theosophy  peculiar  to 
Ruysbroeck,  the  minute  study  of  the  introversion 
and  introspection  of  the  soul,  the  contemplation 
of  God  above  all  similitudes  and  likenesses,  and 

67 


68  RUYSBROECK 

the  drama  of  the  divine  love  on  the  uninhabitable 

peaks  of  the  spirit." 

The  truth  could  hardly  be  better  expressed  ; 
and  when  we  remember  that  they  were  all  written, 
as  he  says,  under  the  direct  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  we  may  well  believe  that  he  had  drunk 
deep  of  the  wine  of  inward  joy  and  spiritual 
consolation,  of  which  he  speaks  so  often  and  so 
rapturously. 

He  was  born,  probably,  in  the  year  1293,  and 
died  in  the  year  1381.  He  was  for  some  time 
prior  of  Vauvert,  near  Brussels,  but  afterwards 
retired  into  the  forest  of  Soignies,  where  in  the 
convent  of  Grunthal,  spiritually  exercised  and 
after  much  meditation,  he  wrote  most  of  his 
books.  He  seems  to  have  read  Dionysius,  St. 
Augustine,  Eckhart,  and  other  mystical  writers  ; 
but  the  unsurpassed  depth  of  his  thought  and 
spiritual  acumen  is  unquestionably  due  to  the 
profound  spiritual  experience,  or  rather  experi- 
ences, of  a  singularly  simple  and  sensitive — 
perhaps  one  might  even  say,  emotional — nature, 
of  which  he  writes  at  first  hand.  He  himself, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  most  humbly  but 
most  fervently  believed  that  all  his  mystical 
writing  was  done  under   the   direct  guidance  of 


LOVE    AND    REST  69 

the  Holy  Spirit,  and  with  a  special  and  most 
blessed  consciousness  of  the  divine  presence  in 
his  soul.  This  blessedness  included  peace,  inward 
quiet,  faithful  clinging  to  the  source  of  all  joy, 
sleep  in  God,  and  contemplation  of  the  heaven 
of  darkness,  far  above  reason. 

It  was,  in  other  words,  the  mystic  labour  and 
rest,  concerning  which  Ruysbroeck  writes  :  ''In 
one  and  the  selfsame  moment  of  time,  love 
labours  and  rests  in  its  love.  And  the  one  is 
made  strong  by  the  other,  because  the  higher 
the  love  the  greater  is  the  rest,  while  the  greater 
the  rest,  the  dearer  is  the  love ;  for  the  one 
lives  in  the  other  ;  and  he  who  loves  not  rests 
not,  while  he  who  rests  not  loves  not.  There 
are,  however,  some  good  men  who  believe  that 
they  neither  love  nor  rest  in  God  ;  but  this  very 
thought  springs  from  love,  and  since  their  desire 
to  love  is  greater  than  their  ability,  it  seems  to 
them,  therefore,  that  they  are  powerless  to  love. 
Yet  in  this  labour  they  taste  of  love  and  rest, 
for  only  the  resigned,  the  passive,  and  the 
illuminated  man  can  understand  how  it  is  possible 
to  rest  and  also  to  enjoy." 

Perhaps  no  one  has  written  more  fully  of  the 
stages  of  the  inward  way  than  Ruysbroeck  ;  and 


70  RUYSBROECK 

although  he  would  have  agreed  with  the  saying 
of  Saint-Martin  that  Christianity  possesses  things 
of  great  force  and  great  weight  which  neither 
are  nor  can  ever  be  written,  yet  the  three  stages 
of  the  exiled  soul's  path  have  seldom  been 
described  more  particularly  or  more  faithfully. 

The  lowest  stage  is  that  of  the  active  life. 
The  distinguishing  marks  of  this  life  are  humility, 
love,  and  justice.  We  occupy,  preserve,  and 
order  the  kingdom  of  our  soul,  says  Ruysbroeck, 
in  going  forth  by  love  and  the  virtues,  and  it 
is  essential  that  we  go  forth  by  charity  and 
justice  towards  God,  towards  our  neighbour,  and 
towards  ourselves.  The  greatest  of  all  virtues 
is  love,  and  Ruysbroeck  tells  us  emphatically 
that  none  can  enter  into  the  repose  that  is 
above  action,  unless  he  has  first  actively  loved 
love.  The  man  who  feels  or  thinks  that  he 
can  possess  God  without  the  exercises  of  love 
is  deceived.  The  exercise  of  love  is  indis- 
pensable. 

The  middle  or  second  stage  is  that  of  the 
internal  life.  This  denotes  the  rise  of  the  soul 
from  the  exterior  to  the  inner  life,  which 
Ruysbroeck  sometimes  calls  the  elevated  or 
affective  life.     It  is  then  that  the  mystic,  having 


SUPERNATURAL    VISION  71 

received  the  illumination  of  the  intellect,  beholds 
the    eternal    truth.      For    this    illumination,    this 
spiritual    or    supernatural   vision,   as    Ruysbroeck 
calls  it,  three  things  are  necessary.     '*  First,  the 
light  of  the  divine  grace,  then  the  free  conversion 
of  the  will  towards  God,  and  lastly,  a  conscience 
pure  from  all  mortal  sin."     It  is  by  the  light  of 
the    divine    grace   alone    that    the   soul    can   see. 
Ruysbroeck  maintained  as    fervently  as  another 
great  mystic  that  *'  the  entire  universe,  notwith- 
standing   all    the    splendours    which    it    displays 
before    our   eyes,    can    never    of    itself    manifest 
the  truly  divine  treasures,"  but,  "in  order  that  the 
creature  may  conceive  and  comprehend  God,  it 
must  be  drawn  up  into  God  from  above."     Only 
by   the   agency  and    operation  of  God    can    the 
creature    comprehend    Him.     It    is  divine  grace 
which  enables  the  soul  to  recognise  and  realise 
its  latent  possibility.     To    go   out    towards  God 
by  interior  love  in  eternal  work,  and  by  joyous 
inclination   to   rest   in   God   in  eternal  repose,  to 
abide  in  God,  and  yet  go   out    towards  all    the 
creatures  in  common  love,  in  the  virtues,  and  in 
the  works  of  justice, — this  is  the  supreme  summit 
of  the  inner  life.     The  soul  that  ascends  to  this 
height   has   all    things  under  it,  is  sanctified   by 


72  RUYSBROECK 

God,  and  in  ''the  nothingness  of  humility"  rises 

beyond  all  heavens. 

While  all  are  not  called  to  the  internal  life, 
only  few  attain  the  third  stage,  which  is  that 
of  the  contemplative  life.  Here,  by  a  process 
of  **  deification,"  the  soul  makes  its  ascent  to  God. 
At  this  stage  we  die  to  ourselves  in  God,  and 
God  unites  us  with  Himself  in  eternal  love. 
Thus  the  soul  ''  sinks  into  the  vast  darkness  of 
the  Godhead."  Very  few  men  attain  to  this 
divine  contemplation,  according  to  Ruysbroeck, 
because  of  their  incapacity  and  the  mystery  of 
the  light  in  which  contemplation  takes  place. 
Only  he  who  is  united  to  God  and  illuminated 
in  this  truth  can  comprehend  the  truth  by  itself 

This  contemplation  is  the  eternal  recompense 
of  all  the  virtues  and  of  all  life  ;  none  can  arrive 
there  by  knowledge  or  subtlety,  nor  by  any 
exercise  ;  but  he  whom  God  wills  to  unite  to 
His  own  spirit  and  to  illuminate  by  Himself 
can  contemplate  God,  and  none  other  can.  It  is 
to  be  remembered,  however,  that  ''  the  essential 
unity  of  our  spirit  in  God  exists  not  in  itself, 
but  abides  in  God  and  flows  out  from  God,  and 
is  immanent  in  God  and  returns  to  God,  as  to  its 
eternal   cause."     And,  says   Ruysbroeck,   as   the 


"THE    LONELY    DARKNESS"  73 

abyss  of  God  calls  to  abyss,  so  it  is  with  all 
those  whose  spirits  are  united  to  God  in  joyous 
love.  All  men  who  are  raised  above  their 
creatureliness  into  the  contemplative  life  become 
one  with  the  divine  glory,  one  with  the  same 
light  by  means  of  which  they  see,  and  which 
they  see.  ''  This  calling  is  an  irruption  from  His 
essential  brightness  ;  and  this  essential  brightness 
in  the  embrace  of  His  bottomless  love  causes  us 
to  lose  ourselves  and  escape  from  ourselves  in 
the  lonely  darkness  of  God." 

In  another  place,  Ruysbroeck  speaks  of  the 
manifestation  of  God  and  of  eternal  life  beginning 
in  the  abyss  of  darkness.  There  the  loving  spirit 
is  dead  to  itself  This  is  the  highest  state  of 
knowledge  to  be  attained,  "  the  stage  of  ignorance 
— where  there  is  neither  God  nor  creature,  as 
far  as  respects  the  distinction  of  persons,  but 
where  we  in  God,  and  God  in  us,  form  one  simple 
blessedness,  provided  we  have  all  lost  ourselves, 
and  have  been  diffused  through,  or  even  dissolved 
in,  the  unknown  obscurity.  This  is  the  highest 
that  can  be  attained  in  eternal  blessedness,  in  life, 
death,  enjoyment,  love."  Here  ''we  behold  the 
immeasurable  glory  of  God,  and  our  intellect  is 
as  clear  from  all  considerations  of  distinction  and 


74  RUYSBROECK 

figurative  apprehensions,  as  though  we  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  such  things.  Then  the  riches 
of  God  are  open  to  us.  Our  spirit  becomes 
desireless,  as  though  there  were  nothing  on  earth 
or  in  heaven  of  which  we  stood  in  need.  Then 
we  are  alone  with  God,  God  and  we — nothing 
else.  Then  we  rise  above  all  multiplicity  and 
distinction  into  the  simple  nakedness  of  our 
essence,  and  in  it  become  conscious  of  the  infinite 
wisdom  of  the  divine  essence,  whose  inex- 
haustible depths  are  as  a  vast  waste,  into  which 
no  corporeal  and  no  spiritual  image  can  intrude. 
Our  created  is  absorbed  in  our  uncreated  life,  and 
we  are  as  it  were  transformed  into  God." 

Having  won  its  way,  the  contemplative  spirit 
enjoying  as  far  as  may  be  in  this  mortal  state  a 
real  knowledge  of  the  vision  of  God,  will  ex- 
perience its  living  efficacy  in  the  perfection  of 
divine  rest. 

And  towards  the  place  of  exile,  far  away, 
We  shall  look  back  in  our  relief  and  say : 

Hard  was  the  bed  whereon  we  writhed  in  sleep; 
But  now  the  vigils  of  true  life  repay 
With  rest  divinely  deep.^ 

We  shall,  as  Ruysbroeck  says,  understand  by 
love,  and  we  shall  be  understood  by  love,   and 
^  A.  E.  Waite,  Strange  Houses  of  Sleep, \ 


THE   BRIDEGROOM'S   COMING  75 

God  shall  possess  us  and  we  Him  in  unity.  In 
a  word,  we  shall  enjoy  God,  and,  united  to  Him, 
we  shall  rest  in  blessedness. 

Deep  to  deep  and  sea  to  sea, 
Wondrous  union,  wondrous  rest, 

And  o'erflowing,  then  shall  be 
The  long  pent-up  soul  express'd. 

This  is  the  life  of  love  in  its  perfection,  which 
Ruysbroeck  says  is  '*  above  reason  and  higher 
than  all  understanding."  The  union  grows  closer 
all  the  days  of  our  life  which  becomes  an  "  eternal 
coming  of  our  Bridegroom."  The  following 
words  represent,  without  doubt,  Ruysbroeck's 
own  experience :  **  The  coming  of  the  Bride- 
groom is  so  swift  that  He  is  always  coming — 
dwelling  within  us  with  His  unfathomable  riches 
— ever  returning  anew  in  person,  with  such  new 
brightness  that  it  seems  as  if  He  had  never  come 
before.  For  His  coming  extends  beyond  all  limit 
of  time  into  an  eternal  Now,  and  He  is  always 
received  with  new  desires  and  new  delight.  Lo ! 
the  joys  and  the  delights  which  this  Bridegroom 
brings  with  Him  at  His  coming  are  boundless 
and  limitless,  for  they  are  Himself!  For  this 
reason,  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  by  which  the  loving 
soul  beholds  its  Bridegroom  are  opened  so  wide 


ye  RUYSBROECK 

that  they  will  never  close  again.  The  con- 
templation and  the  fixed  gaze  of  the  spirit  are 
eternal  in  the  secret  manifestation  of  God,  and 
the  comprehension  of  the  spirit  is  so  widely 
opened,  as  it  waits  for  the  appearing  of  the  Bride- 
groom, that  the  spirit  itself  becomes  great  as  that 
which  it  comprehends.  Thus  is  God  beheld  and 
comprehended  by  God,  in  whom  all  our  blessed- 
ness is  found." 

Of  the  eternal  satisfaction  of  the  craving  for 
union  with  God,  it  must  be  admitted  that  Ruys- 
broeck  often  speaks  unguardedly.  For  example, 
he  writes  :  "In  this  embrace  and  essential  unity 
with  God  all  devout  and  inward  spirits  are  one 
with  God  by  living  immersion  and  melting  away 
into  Him  ;  they  are  by  grace  one  and  the  same 
thing  with  Him,  because  the  same  essence  is  in 
both."  In  such  a  statement  as  this,  and  many 
others  which  might  be  easily  adduced,  it  is  obvious 
there  is  that  which  might  give  rise  to  a  suspicion  in 
the  minds  of  some  that  the  writer  had  pantheistic 
tendencies  ;  but  Ruysbroeck  certainly  could  not 
be  rightly  charged  with  teaching  pantheism,  for 
in  numerous  passages  he  insists  upon  the  fact 
that  we  remain  eternally  distinct  from  God.  We 
arrive,  it  is  true,  at  the  eternal  image  after  which 


"THE   DARK   SILENCE"  ^^ 

we  were  created,  and  become  one  with  the  divine 
glory,  but  we  also  contemplate  God.  And  this 
is  the  soul's  supreme  blessedness,  for  "  here  is 
nought  but  an  eternal  rest,  in  a  joyous  envelop- 
ment of  loving  immersion,  and  this  is  the  essence, 
without  mode,  which  all  interior  spirits  have 
chosen  above  all  other  things.  It  is  the  dark 
silence  in  which  all  lovers  are  lost."  The  life 
begun  by  divine  grace,  continued  by  self-denial 
and  discipline,  and  illumined  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
shed  abroad  in  the  heart,  finds  its  completion 
and  perfection  in  a  realised  union  of  the  soul  with 
God. 

Of  the  strange  and  dark  vicissitudes  through 
which  the  soul  passes  ere  it  enters  the  Mysterium 
Magnum y  Ruysbroeck  writes  :  "  Out  of  all  suf- 
ferings and  renunciations  the  man  will  derive 
for  himself  an  inward  joy,  he  will  resign  himself 
into  the  hands  of  God  and  will  rejoice  to  endure 
suffering  for  the  promotion  of  God's  glory.  And 
by  persevering  in  this  way  he  will  experience 
secret  joys  never  tasted  before,  because  nothing 
so  rejoices  the  lover  of  God  as  to  feel  that  he 
belongs  to  his  Beloved  "...  Further,  when  the 
time  comes  all  consolation  is  withdrawn  from 
these    exercised    spirits     "so    that    they    believe 


78  RUYSBROECK 

they  have  lost  all  their  virtues,  and  are  forsaken 
of  God  and  of  every  creature,  if  they  know  how 
to  gather  the  various  fruits,  the  corn  is  ripe  and 
the  wine  ready."  Those  souls  who  walk  the  way 
of  love,  amid  all  storms,  to  the  place  whither  love 
shall  lead  them,  having  been  disciplined  by  all 
the  virtues,  will  be  accounted  worthy  to  behold 
God  and  partake  of  that  sacrament  which  will 
be  communicated  to  those  who  sit  down  at  "  the 
marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb." 

Concerning  the  Person  and  the  work  of  the 
Incarnate  Son,  Ruysbroeck  teaches  that  "the 
Son  is  the  Image  of  the  Father,  that  in  the  Son 
have  dwelt  from  all  eternity,  foreknown  and  con- 
templated by  the  Father,  the  prototypes  of  all 
mankind.  We  existed  in  the  Son  before  we 
were  born — He  is  the  creative  ground  of  all 
creatures — the  eternal  cause  and  principle  of 
their  life.  The  highest  essence  of  our  being 
rests  therefore  in  God — exists  in  His  image  in 
the  Son."  "  The  office  of  the  Son  in  time  was 
to  die  for  us,  fulfil  the  law,  and  give  us  a  divine 
pattern  of  humility,  love  and  patience.  He  is  the 
fountain  whence  flows  to  us  all  needed  blessing, 
and  .  .  .  what  the  Son  did.  He  did  for  all." 
Ruysbroeck    is    never    weary    of    insisting     that 


PRACTICAL   ASPECT  79 

Christ  must  be  the  rule  and  pattern  of  our  lives, 
and  that  often  we  must  needs  press  ourselves  to 
the  wounds  and  open  heart  of  Christ  our  Saviour, 
if  in  all  things  we  would  have  God  for  our  aim. 
In  such  exercises,  visions  and  great  revelations 
of  the  Lord  have  often  come  to  men 

Ruysbroeck    had    a    very    keen    eye    for    the 
abuses  and  the  foibles,  as  well  as  the  vices  rife  in 
his  day,  and  as  Vaughan  points  out,  he  ''  inveighs 
with  much  detail  against  the  vanities  of  female 
dress — as  to  those  hair  pads,  sticking  up  like  great 
horns — they   are  just   so  many    '  devil's  nests.'  " 
He  does  not  for  a  moment  ignore  what  is  known 
as  the   practical   side    of  the    religious    life,    but 
urges  that  we  must  not  remain  on  the  top  of  the 
ladder,  but  must  descend.     A  life  of  meekness, 
humility,  and  service  is  a  proof  of  the  birth  of 
the  Son  in  our  souls.     Or  as  another  mystic  has 
said:    "  As  a  proof  that  we  are  regenerated  we 
must  regenerate  everything  around  us." 

Finally,  Ruysbroeck  affirms  that  in  the  interior 
life,  everything  depends  on  the  will.  It  is  neces- 
sary above  all  things  that  a  man  should  will  right, 
fervently.  "  Will  to  have  humility  and  love,  and 
they  are  thine."  All  things  are  possible  to  the 
willing  believer.     ''  On  the  white  colour  of  inno- 


8o  RUYSBROECK 

cence  we  shall  place  red  roses  by  evermore 
resisting  all  that  is  evil.  Thus  we  maintain 
purity  and  crucify  our  own  nature,  and  these 
red  roses  with  their  sweet  perfume  are  very 
lovely  on  the  white  colour." 


CHAPTER  VII 

SUSO 

Henry  Suso  was  born  in  the  year  1295  ^^^ 
died  in  1365.  He  was,  in  many  respects,  notably 
in  his  passionate  devotion  to  the  Saviour,  akin 
to  the  great  Spanish  mystics,  although  in  his 
youthful  days  he  had  been  a  disciple  of  Eckhart 
at  Cologne,  of  whom  he  afterwards  spoke  as 
"  the  blessed  master  Eckhart." 

The  place  and  function  of  asceticism  are  defined 
and  exemplified  in  an  exaggerated  form  in  Suso, 
who  maintained  that  the  only  way  to  the  Crown 
was  the  royal  way  of  the  Holy  Cross  ;  and  so 
intense  was  the  literalness  of  his  belief,  that  he 
practised  upon  himself  the  most  terrible  austerities, 
with  unflinching  calmness  and  unremitting  rigour. 
His  descriptions  of  the  visions  and  ecstasies 
which  came  to  him  are  extremely  vivid  and 
poetical,  for  he  had  by  no  means  a  contemptible 
literary    gift — which    was    suffused    through    and 

8^  6 


82  SUSO 

through    with    the    warmth    of    his    ardent    and 

affectionate  soul. 

Dr.  Inge  has  remarked,  with  much  truth,  that 
Suso's  autobiography  is  a  document  of  unique 
importance  for  the  psychology  of  mysticism.  It 
may  be  added  that  it  bears  all  the  marks  of  the 
exercised  believer,  although 

The  purports  deep  by  which  the  soul  is  stirr'd 
Lurk  not  within  the  manifested  word, 
As  many  intimations  dimly  show. 
Directing  higher  search  to  those  who  know. 

It  was  in  his  eighteenth  year  that  Suso  first 
turned  to  God,  and  it  was  not  long  after  this 
that  he  began  his  ascetic  practices.  Soon  visions 
were  vouchsafed  to  him,  lasting  usually  about 
an  hour  and  a  half,  and  by  these  he  was  greatly 
encouraged.  It  was  in  one  such  vision  that  he 
saw  *'  the  blessed  master  Eckhart,"  who  told 
him  that  the  secret  of  dwelling  in  God  was 
detachment  from  the  world,  and  the  way  to 
attain  this  detachment  was  to  die  to  self,  and 
*'  to  maintain  unruffled  patience  with  all  men." 
In  another  vision  he  saw  a  company  of  angels, 
of  one  of  whom  Suso  requested  that  he  might 
be  permitted  to  see  '*  the  manner  of  God's  secret 
dwelling  in  the   soul."       He  was  bidden    cast   a 


ASCETIC   DISCIPLINE  83 

joyous  glance  into  himself,  and  behold  "  how 
God  plays  His  play  of  Love "  with  a  loving 
soul — all  of  which  Suso  describes  with  much 
ardess  charm. 

His  affectionate  nature  could  only  be  satisfied 
by  the  highest  joy  of  loving  hearts,  and  thus 
he  was  moved  to  cut  the  letters  of  the  name 
of  Jesus  in  his  breast,  so  deeply  that  he  carried 
the  marks  throughout  his  life  "  about  the  length 
of  a  finger-joint." 

After  sixteen  years  of  painful  penances  and 
austere  discipline,  he  abandoned  his  extreme 
asceticism,  being  warned,  he  states,  by  an  angel 
to  discontinue  his  accustomed  practices.  There- 
after, he  did  not  regard  these  things  as  indispens- 
able to  the  living  of  a  holy  life.  External  marks 
they  had  been,  though  signal  proofs  of  an  internal 
passion  ;  and  Suso  relates  how  in  a  vision  the 
Lord  spoke  to  him,  saying:  **  Hitherto  thou 
hast  stricken  thyself :  now  I  will  strike  thee  .  . 
thou  shalt  be  forsaken  both  by  God  and  the 
world.  ...  Be  of  good  cheer,  I  will  be  with 
thee  and  aid  thee  to  overcome."  The  joy  of 
the  certainty  of  the  divine  presence  was  for 
seasons  denied  him,  and  he  passed  through 
periods  of  great  spiritual  desolation,   and  under- 


84  SUSO 

went  the  agonies  of  soul  dereliction.  But  Suso 
won  his  way  through  these  perils  into  the  calm 
assurance  of  life  in  God,  and  his  days  were 
henceforth  spent  in  holy  service  of  increasing 
fruitfulness.  He  was,  as  Vaughan  points  out, 
greatly  sought  after  as  a  preacher. 

A  brief  examination  of  the  Book  of  the  Eternal 
Wisdom,  which  Suso  is  stated  to  have  written 
*'  only  in  his  most  favoured  moments,  himself 
ignorant  and  passive,  but  under  the  immediate 
impulse  and  illumination  of  the  Divine  Wisdom," 
will  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  characteristic 
features  of  his  mysticism  ;  and  as  Suso  says  : 
"Whosoever  will  read  these  writings  of  mine 
in  a  right  spirit,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  stirred  in 
his  heart's  depths,  either  to  fervent  love,  or  to 
new  light,  or  to  a  longing  and  thirsting  for  God, 
or  to  detestation  and  loathing  of  his  sins,  or  to 
that  spiritual  aspiration  by  which  the  soul  is 
renewed  in  grace." 

The  first  step  towards  union  with  God  is 
detachment  from  the  world,  a  real  detachment, 
attained  only  by  dying  to  self.  Speaking  to  his 
*'  spiritual  daughter,"  Suso  says  that  the  order 
in  which  the  spirit  returns  to  God  is,  first,  by 
completely  disentangling  itself  from  the  pleasures 


STEPS   TOWARDS    UNION  85 

of  the  world  and  resolutely  turning  away  from 
all  vices,  and  in  quiet  and  holy  exercise  by 
continual  prayer  to  God,  obtaining  and  maintaining 
the  subjugation  of  the  flesh.  Quite  simply,  the 
first  stage  consists  in  turning  away  from  the  world 
and  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  to  God. 

Next,  one  must  be  heartily  willing  to  endure 
patiently  whatsoever  ills  flesh  is  heir  to,  whether 
inflicted  by  God  or  man.  The  garden  of 
spices  is  sprinkled  with  red  flowers.  Further, 
the  Passion  of  Christ  crucified  must  be  ex- 
perienced in  and  by  our  own  souls  ;  it  must  not 
be  a  mere  imitation  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ, 
but  a  mystical  identification  with  them.  In 
addition  to  this,  the  most  holy  life  of  our 
Redeemer  is  given  for  us,  as  our  example.  By 
a  continual  remembrance  of  this — of  His  gracious 
words  and  His  blameless  life — we  shall  be 
fashioned  after  the  same  image.  Beyond  this 
is  the  stage  in  which  the  soul  divests  itself  in 
a  profound  stillness,  by  a  purposeful  resignation. 
Therein  a  man  becomes  dead  to  self — the  honour 
of  Christ  and  the  heavenly  Father  has  become 
all  in  all,  and  in  this  utter  tranquillity  of  spirit, 
"  that  mystic  trance  through  which  our  Momus 
pageantries  advance,"  attained  through  progressive 


86  SUSO 

holy  exercise,  a  man  arrives  at  the  goal  in  which, 
freed  from  the  outward  senses  he  parts  with 
his  ''  natural  properties,"  and  '*  presses  within 
the  circle  which  represents  the  eternal  Godhead, 
and  thus  reaches  spiritual  perfection."  This 
entire  process  has  been  truly  and  tersely 
described  by  Suso,  where  he  says  that  a  man 
of  true  self-abandonment  must  be  unbuilt  from 
the  creature,  inbuilt  with  Christ,  and  overbuilt 
into  the  Godhead. 

In  this  risumd  of  Suso's  teaching,  there  are 
certain  things  which  call  for  some  comment, 
perhaps  even  elucidation  ;  and  we  do  well  to 
bear  in  mind  continually,  that  "  all  these  images, 
with  their  interpretations,  are  as  unlike  the 
formless  truth  as  a  black  Ethiopian  is  to  the 
bright  sun." 

The  basis  of  all  Suso's  mystical  teaching 
is  the  doctrine  that  men  become  sons  through 
Christ  and  in  Christ.  Suso  compares  the  only 
begotten  Son  to  an  image  which  is  so  complex 
and  manifold,  that  it  denotes  all  men.  All  men 
are  members  of  Christ,  and  it  is  by  Him  alone 
that  they  either  are,  or  may  become  sons. 
Speaking  of  Christ  the  Lord  Suso  affirms  that 
He    is    distinguished    above    all    men,    in    that 


THE    WAY   OF   THE   CROSS  87 

He  is  the  Head  of  Christendom,  which  is  His 
body.  It  is  therefore  well  with  a  man,  only 
when,  dying  to  self,  he  begins  to  live  in  Christ. 
Whosoever  then  desires  to  become  a  son  in 
Christ  and  commence  the  steep  ascent,  must 
with  unfeigned  resignation  turn  from  himself  to 
Christ,  and  "  he  shall  come  whither  he  ought 
to  come."  Though  we  have  caused  our  Elder 
Brother  much  labour  and  pain,  nay,  for  that  very 
cause,  the  abyss  of  His  mercy  towards  us  is 
unfathomable. 

Suso  represents  our  Lord  as  saying  :  "  No 
man  can  come  to  the  height  of  my  Godhead,  nor 
attain  to  that  unknown  sweetness,  unless  he  be 
first  led  through  the  bitterness  of  my  humanity 
which  is  the  road  by  which  men  must  travel. 
My  Passion  is  the  gate  through  which  they  must 
enter." 

Suso  teaches  that  the  soul  must  be  prepared 
to  suffer  and  endure  :  "  Of  a  surety  thou  wilt 
have  to  endure  many  deaths,  ere  thou  canst 
put  thy  nature  under  the  yoke.  .  .  .  Many  shall 
be  thy  afflictions,  till  thou  hast  finished  thy 
grievous  journey  of  cross-bearing,  and  hast  re- 
nounced thy  own  will  and  disentangled  thyself  so 
completely  from  all  creatures,  in  everything  which 


88  SUSO 

might  hinder  thine  eternal  salvation,  as  to  be  like 
one  about  to  die."  Again  he  asks  :  "By  what 
other  way  could  he  who  had  deprived  himself 
of  joy  by  the  insatiable  pursuit  of  pleasure  be 
brought  back  more  fittingly  to  the  joys  of 
eternity  ? "  We  are  divinely  assured  that,  as 
created  beings  now  are,  no  more  fitting  method 
could  be  found.     To  be  alone 

On  the  tideless  seas  in  the  middle  hour 
Of  the  savage  and  measureless  night, 

is  an    experience  dread    indeed,    but    it   will    be 
forgotten  In  the  glory  of  the  daybreak. 

Suso  held  that  the  secrets  of  God  were  dis- 
closed to  men  in  the  humanity  of  Christ,  and  that 
by  no  other  means  could  they  have  been  made 
known.  Christ  is  the  door  by  which  a  man  may 
enter  ;  He  is  our  Kinsman  in  whom  we  find  the 
source  of  our  new  life  ;  and  from  Him  proceeds 
the  living  energy  which  enables  us  to  will  and 
to  do.  This  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  mystery  of  our  own  being  is  inextricably 
interwoven  with  His,  that  our  destiny  is  linked 
with  the  travail  of  His  soul,  and  that  we  are 
complete  in  Him.  How  deep  is  the  truth  that 
finds  expression  in  the  mystical  saying,  that  the 


PASSIO    CHRISTI  89 

door  by  which  God  issues  from  Himself  is 
the  door  through  which  He  enters  the  human 
soul  ! 

On  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  Suso's  teaching  is 
both  full  and  clear.  A  high  love,  he  says,  loves 
the  sufferings  of  Christ ;  for  they  immoderately 
affect  the  heart.  They  ought  not,  however,  to  be 
regarded  solely  after  an  outward  manner,  but 
much  more  after  an  inward  manner ;  not  alone 
by  the  reason  in  contemplative  guise,  but  rather 
operatively  or  experimentally.  In  a  word,  they 
are  to  be  apprehended  by  *'  an  imitative  exercise." 
No  one  more  truly  testifies  his  grief  over  the 
Saviours  Passion  than  he  who  in  very  deed 
passes  through  it  with  the  Saviour,  and  fills  up 
that  which  is  behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ. 
Only  thus  does  the  soul  share  to  the  full  in  the 
treasure  of  the  divine  passion. 

''  Who,"  asks  Suso,  "  would  be  willing  to  tread 
the  way  of  a  hard  and  despised  life  (avoided  by 
all)  if  God  had  not  trodden  the  same  way  Him- 
self.^ Suppose  thou  wert  under  condemnation  of 
death,  how  could  any  one  show  his  love  and 
fidelity  to  thee  more  certainly,  or  cause  thee  to 
love  him  in  return  more  powerfully,  than  by 
bearing  thy  sentence  himself?  "     Therefore,  says 


go  SUSO 

Suso,  if  there  is  any  one  who  is  not  stirred  and 
moved  to  love  Christ  from  his  heart  by  His 
exceeding  love,  His  infinite  pity,  His  exalted 
divinity,  His  pure  humanity,  His  brotherly 
fidelity,  His  sweet  companionship,  is  there  aught 
that  can  soften  that  stony  heart  ?  Even  when  all 
is  done  that  can  be  done  by  a  man  in  imitation 
of  the  Saviour's  most  gentle  life  and  most  loving 
passion,  no  man  can  make  himself  for  Christ's 
sake  such  as  Christ  made  Himself  for  his. 

We  must  not,  however,  understand  Suso  to 
teach  that  there  is  no  virtue  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  after  an  outward 
manner,  for  this  would  be  opposed  both  to  the 
spirit  of  His  words  and  to  the  example  of  His  life. 
To  the  one  who  realises  the  inward  in  the  out- 
ward, the  inward  becomes  more  truly  vital  than 
it  does  to  him  who  merely  realises  the  inward 
in  the  inward  ;  and  to  bear  in  the  body  the  marks 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  is  a  sign  that  we  shall  also 
bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly.  But  to  know 
the  essential  glory  of  the  Beloved  Son,  the 
eyes  must  first  behold  ''  the  slain  and  the 
stricken  Lamb,"  and  on  the  cross  of  dishonour 
**  a  cursed  and  a  dying  Man."  On  this  wise  the 
soul  is   led    into    fellowship    with    the    sufferings 


"THE    SORROWS    I    SUFFER"  91 

of  the   Lord,  and  experiences  the  blessedness  of 
conformity  to  the  Divine  Son. 

I  would  bear  in  my  body  the  dying 
Of  Him  who  has  died  for  me — 

Here  share,  O  my  Lord,  Thy  rejection 
Ere  I  sit  on  Thy  Throne  with  Thee. 

In  sorrow,  in  want,  in  dishonour, 
How  dear  are  Thy  footsteps  to  me  ! 

The  fountain  is  sweet  to  the  thirsty, 
But  sweeter  is  thirsting  with  Thee. 

Above  me  the  stars  in  the  heavens. 
Stars  countless,  so  many  they  be  , 

So  glorious,  albeit  so  countless 
The  sorrows  I  suffer  for  Thee.^ 

Although  Suso  would  agree  with  one  who 
writes  that  Horeb  and  Calvary  and  Sinai  are 
"  all  peaks  where  man  has  suffer'd  and  has  seen 
some  little  corner  of  the  mystery,"  he  would 
likewise  teach  (in  accordance  with  the  deepest 
thought  of  the  greatest  mystics),  that  *'the 
Mystery  of  the  Passion  and  of  that  Lamb  which 
has  been  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world 
is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  unseen.  The 
true  Golgotha  and  Calvary  are  not  of  this 
world."  But  as  Suso  sings,  it  is  nevertheless 
true,  that  as 

1  Hymm  of  Ter  Steegen,  Suso  and  others,  by  Frances  Bevan. 


92  SUSO 

Thou  knowest  the  sun  by  his  glory — 
Thou  knowest  the  rose  by  her  breath, 

Thou  knowest  the  fire  by  its  glowing — 
Thou  knowest  my  Love  by  Death. 

The  soul  must  not  shrink  because  it  is  neces- 
sary to  follow  the  footsteps  of  Christ's  Passion  ; 
for  the  soul  that  loves  God,  and  is  inwardly  united 
to  Him,  finds  the  cross  itself  light  and  easy  to 
bear,  and  has  nothing  whereof  to  complain. 
"  No  one  receives  from  Me  more  marvellous 
sweetness  than  He  who  shares  My  bitterest 
labours." 

Suso  represents  the  Eternal  Wisdom  speaking 
to  the  servitor  thus  :  ''  Knowest  thou  not  Me  ? 
Wherefore  art  thou  so  despondent  ?  .  .  .  Dost 
thou  not  know  that  I  am  Wisdom,  most  gentle 
and  tender,  in  whom  is  the  abyss  of  infinite 
mercy,  never  yet  fathomed  perfectly  even  by  all 
the  saints,  but  still  open  to  thee  and  all  other 
sorrowing  hearts.  ...  I  am  He  who  bore  a 
bitter  death,  that  I  might  restore  thee  to  life. 
I  am  thy  brother  ;  I  am  thy  Bridegroom.  .  .  . 
Wash  away  thy  stains  in  My  blood.  Lift  up  thy 
head,  open  thine  eyes  and  take  heart.  In  token 
of  reconciliation  take  this  ring  and  put  it  on  thy 
finger  as  My  bride,  put  on  this  robe  and  these 


DERELICTION  93 

shoes,  and  receive  this  sweet  and  loving  name, 
that  thou  mayst  both  be  and  be  called  for  ever 
My  bride." 

Of  the  ebb  and  How  of  the  tides  of  the  spirit, 
Suso  writes  with  great  wisdom.  Once  he  passed 
through  a  period  of  the  deepest  spiritual  gloom — 
a  gloom  which  lasted  for  ten  years.  He  knows 
that  never  to  be  deprived  of  the  divine  presence 
belongs  not  to  temporal,  but  to  eternal  life  ;  and 
that  the  holiest  souls  have  to  pass  through  times 
of  intense  spiritual  desolation,  and  no  "  resigna- 
tion is  more  perfect  or  more  excellent  than  to 
be  resigned  in  dereliction."  It  is  the  divine 
will  that  we  should  be  resigned  in  the  matter 
of  receiving  and  feeling  tokens  of  the  divine 
love ;  and  we  ought  to  seek  the  divine  glory 
alone  (not  the  gratification  of  ourselves)  "  in 
dryness  and  hardness  as  well  as  in  sweetness." 

The  end  of  the  mystic's  path  is  God.  Suso 
describes  the  heart's  true  Home  in  language 
which  has  been  an  offence  to  many.  Dorner, 
for  example,  regards  Suso  as  setting  up  ''as  the 
objective  goal  of  man,"  the  '*  deepest  abyss, 
the  dark  state  of  utter  indeterminateness,  in 
which  all  manifoldness  and  the  spirit's  own  self- 
hood   disappear."       But   in    Suso's   thought  it   is 


94  SUSO 

clear  that  the  distinction  between  the  Creator  and 
the  creature  was  preserved,  however  unguarded 
some  of  his  expressions  concerning  absorption  in 
God  may  have  been. 

The  influence  of  Dionysius  upon  Suso  is 
marked,  and  nowhere  is  it  more  evident  than  in 
the  doctrine  of  "  the  divine  dark,"  where  the 
soul  is  described  as  becoming  ignorant  of  itself 
and  of  all  things,  and,  reduced  to  its  essence, 
hovering  in  the  abyss  of  the  Trinity.  The 
transit  of  the  soul,  through  the  mystic  experi- 
ences of  the  inward  life,  to  spiritual  perfection, 
ends,  it  is  true,  in  its  absorption  in  the  Eternal 
Godhead ;  yet  Suso  adds,  that  in  this  absorption 
the  soul  is  still  a  creature,  "  but  hath  no  thought 
whether  it  be  a  creature  or  no."  "  Ah,  God  ! 
blessed  is  the  man  who  strives  after  Thee 
alone  !  " 


CHAPTER    VIII 
TAULER 

John  Tauler,  the  great  Dominican  monk  and 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  band  of  godly 
men  known  as  ''The  Friends  of  God" — an 
association  ''for  the  better  tending  of  the  inward 
life  in  these  troublous  times " — was  born  at 
Strassburg,  of  "a  tolerably  wealthy  family,"  in 
the  year  1300.  At  an  early  age  he  entered  the 
Dominican  convent,  subsequently  studying  at 
Cologne,  and  afterwards  at  Paris  at  the  famous 
college  of  St.  Jacques.  It  is  manifest,  however, 
from  his  statements  in  later  life,  that  his  early 
studies,  though  of  a  strenuous  character,  did  not 
teach  him  "  that  which  answered  to  the  needs 
of  his  spirit." 

Undoubtedly,  the  works  of  the  earlier  mystics 
—  especially  Augustine  —  exercised  a  profound 
influence  upon  him  ;  and  in  Tauler's  writings 
Dionysius,   Proclus,   Bernard,  and  the  Victorines 

95 


96  TAULER 

are  all  quoted  or  otherwise  referred  to.  Return- 
ing from  Paris  to  Strassburg,  he  came  under 
the  influence  of  other  mystical  teachers — chief  of 
whom  may  be  cited  Eckhart — commonly  regarded 
as  *'the  most  learned  man  of  his  day  in  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy" — who  left  an  indelible 
impression  upon  Tauler's  thought.  There  is  a 
great  similarity  between  the  teaching  of  Eckhart 
and  Tauler,  but  the  latter  is  less  scholastic  and 
metaphysical  than  the  former  ;  and,  as  we  shall 
see,  in  his  teaching  upon  sin  he  strikes  a  much 
deeper  note.  Nicholas  of  Strassburg  was  another 
mystic  whose  powerful  and  penetrating  intellect, 
combined  with  a  popular  and  persuasive  gift  of 
oratory,  made  a  strong  impression  upon  Tauler. 

Joined  to  intellectual  abilities  of  a  high  order, 
Tauler  had  unique  gifts  as  a  preacher,  a  proof 
of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  crowded  congre- 
gations that  gathered  to  hear  him  until  the  close 
of  his  life.  Doubtless  one  of  the  secrets  of  the 
attractiveness  of  his  preaching  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  its  dominant  note  is  experimental 
and  practical. 

Tauler,  who  was  greatly  beloved  by  the  people 
for  his  unstained  nobility  of  character,  held  that 
no   teacher   can    teach    what  he  has   not  "  lived 


GOD    IN   THE   SOUL  97 

.  through  himself"  ;  and  it  was  said  of  him  that 
the  spirit  of  God  dwelt  within  like  "  a  sweet 
harping."  We  do  not  read  of  visions  and 
voices  in  the  life  of  Tauler,  but  we  feel  that 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  one  who  has  been 
oft  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  with  his 
Lord,  and  beholding  as  in  a  mirror  the  glory 
of  the  Lord,  has  been  changed  into  the  same 
Image. 

His  teaching  concerning  the  indwelling  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  man  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
fruitful,  if  not  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  his 
doctrine.  God  is,  indeed,  everywhere,  but  it  is 
in  the  depths  of  the  soul  that  He  may  always 
be  found.  The  divine  kingdom,  he  says,  is 
seated  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  spirit. 
Accordingly,  the  soul,  which  is  the  noblest  of 
creatures,  is  enabled  to  find,  to  know,  and  to 
love  God.  Men  are  counselled  therefore  to  be  at 
home  in  their  own  hearts,  and  to  cease  from  their 
restless  chase  of  and  search  after  outward  things, 
to  turn  their  thoughts  inward,  to  remain  resting 
on  ''  the  inmost  foundation  of  their  souls,"  and 
with  the  eye  of  their  enlightened  understanding 
fixed  upon  God,  a  ait  the  divine  summons. 
Tauler  speaks  much  of  the  wild  waste,  or  the 

7 


98  TAULER 

wilderness  through  which   exercised  spirits  must 
needs  pass  before  they  can  really  hear  or  under- 
stand that   which  is  within  them,  and  the  com- 
munications that  God  makes  to  the  waiting  soul. 
Here    is   given   an    exceeding    bitter    myrrh    to 
drink  ,  yet,  *'  when  a  man  is  willing  to  taste  this 
myrrh,   and   does   not   put   it  from  him,  it  wears 
down   flesh  and    blood,   yea,    the  whole   nature ; 
for  these  inward  exercises  make  the  cheek  grow 
pale  far  sooner  than  great  outward  hardships,  for 
God  appoints  unto  His  servants  cruel  fightings 
and    strange    dread,    and    unheard-of    distresses, 
which  none  can  understand  but  he  who  has  felt 
them.      And  these  men  are  beset  with    such   a 
variety  of  difficulties,  so  many  cups  of  bitterness 
are  presented   to   them,  that   they  hardly  know 
which  way  to  turn,  or  what  they  ought  to  do  ; 
but  God  knows   right  well   what   He  is  about." 
God   gives   to   the  soul  the  cup  of  myrrh   in  a 
love  surpassing    all  that    the    heart  of    man  can 

conceive. 

When  on  the  aspirations  of  the  heart 

A  darkness  falls  and,  all  her  aids  withdrawn, 

No  comfort  comes  to  cheer  thy  lonely  soul, 

God  is  not  with  thee  less  in  dark  than  light, 

And  in  aridity  and  drought  discern 

His  ministry  and  thy  best  way  to  Him  ! 


"CUPS   OF   BITTERNESS"  99 

A  little  while  He  leaves  thee,  to  return 

In  fuller  sweetness — ah,  He  leaves  thee  not ! 

His  consolation,  not  His  ward  or  watch, 

Withdraws  awhile,  and  thus  He  leads  thee  on. 

That  thou  through  dereliction  and  great  pain 

Mayest  pass  forth  into  felicity. 

God  waits  behind  the  darkness  of  thy  soul. 

As  waits  the  sun  to  gladden  earth  and  sea, 

And  bitter  winds  possessing  all  the  East 

Can  hinder  not  nor  darkness  bar  the  way. 

Tauler  himself  had  passed  through  this,  and  he 
speaks  out  of  the  depths  of  a  rich,  albeit  deso- 
lating spiritual  experience.  The  souls  that 
undergo  and  pass  through  it — not  unscathed — 
become  masters  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  are 
able  to  lead  others  to  the  unsullied  heights  of 
joy  they  themselves  have  attained. 

It  is  by  this  dark  and  awesome  way  that 
the  soul  comes  to  the  joy  and  blessedness,  the 
glory  and  honour  of  those  who  shall  see  clearly 
and  without  veil  the  gladsome  and  beauteous 
face  of  God,  and  shares  in  the  best  and  highest 
good  which  is  God  Himself  But  sore,  indeed, 
is  the  desolation  of  this  darkness  illumined  by 
no  candle  of  the  Lord,  made  radiant  by  no 
vision — the  silence  unbroken  by  any  voice  from 
heaven.     Yet  it  is  in  the  midst  of  this  wilderness 


TOO  TAULER 

that  the  lilies  of  chastity,  the  white  roses  of 
innocence,  the  violets  of  humility  grow  side  by 
side  with  the  red  roses  of  sacrifice  and  "  many 
other  fair  flowers  and  wholesome  roots "  ;  and 
in  traversing  this  unalluring  way  the  soul  is 
prepared  by  God  for  Himself. 

Of  the  abiding  presence  and  continual  work 
of  God  in  the  souls  of  those  with  whom  He 
holds  immediate  converse,  no  man  can  adequately 
speak.  It  can  only  be  dimly  suggested  to 
another.  He  alone  who  has  experienced  it 
knows  what  it  is,  and  can  say  nothing  more  of 
it  than  that  ''  God  in  very  truth  hath  possessed 
the  ground  of  his  soul."  Always  on  man's 
part  there  must  be  deep  humility,  free  self- 
surrender,  patient  long-suffering,  true  poorness 
of  spirit  and  fervent  love  to  God.  Tauler 
entreats  us  to  pray  for  the  true  divine  love 
which  may  unite  the  soul  with  God,  and 
immerse  and  cover  it  in  Him.  The  essence 
of  such  prayer  is  "  the  ascent  of  the  mind 
to  God." 

Tauler  feels  acutely  -the  sinfulness  of  sin, 
and  he  answers  the  poignant  cry  of  the  sin- 
burdened  soul,  **  who  shall  deliver  me  ? "  by 
the    apostolic    word,    ''  I    thank    God   .  .  .    Jesus 


SIN    AND    FORGIVENESS  loi 

Christ  our  Lord."  It  was  this  feature  of  his 
teaching,  doubtless,  that  prompted  Luther  to 
write  of  Tauler's  sermons  that  neither  in  Latin 
nor  in  his  own  language  had  he  ever  seen  a 
theology  more  sound  or  more  in  harmony  with 
the  Gospel. 

Tauler  had  known  the  gr^ice  of  God  in  Christ, 
and  he  firmly  believed  in  that  divine  loving- 
kindness  which  goes  far  out  beyond  our  dreams. 
"O  child,  hast  thou  fallen.^  Then  arise,  and 
with  childlike  trust  go  to  thy  father,  like  the 
prodigal  son,  and  with  humility  say  with  heart 
and  voice,  '  Father,  I  have  sinned  against 
heaven,  and  before  thee,  and  am  no  more  worthy 
to  be  called  thy  son  ;  make  me  as  one  of  thy 
hired  servants.'  And  what  will  thy  Heavenly 
Father  do  but  what  the  father  in  the  parable 
did?  Assuredly  He  will  not  change  His  nature, 
which  is  Love,  on  account  of  thy  misdeeds." 

Of  the  identification  of  the  spiritual  man  with 
the  crucified  Jesus,  Tauler  speaks  as  follows  : 
''  The  holy  apostle  Paul,  whose  endeavours 
towards  a  perfect  life  were  all  founded  upon 
endurance  and  true  renunciation,  shows  how  a 
righteous  and  spiritual  man,  being  crucified  with 
Christ  on   the  Cross,    no   longer    liveth    through 


I02  TAULER 

himself,  albeit   his   sufferings  bring  forth   in  him 

the  living  fruits  of  the  Spirit." 

Further,    Tauler   goes    on    to    say :    "  Though 
there  are  many  kinds  of  cross  and  suffering,   of 
which  each  has  its  own    length    and  depth  and 
breadth   and  height,    yet   there    is    only   one  on 
which  our  eternal  redemption  was  accomplished — 
that    is,    the   cross    of  Christ's  humanity,    which 
again  points  to  a  still  higher  Cross  (in  a  manner 
without  cross  and  pain)  of  His  Divine  nature." 
Tauler   had    sorrowed    greatly    on    account    of 
his  sins,  and  with  agony  of  spirit  had  prayed  : 
"O  merciful  God,  have  mercy  upon  me,  a  poor 
sinner ;  have  mercy  in  Thine  infinite  compassion, 
for  I  am  not  worthy  to  live  on   the  face  of  the 
earth."     Such  an  "unworthy  sinful  man"  would 
not   be    likely    to    regard   sin    lightly.      But   he 
knew    Christ  as    the    sinful    soul's    Saviour,    and 
all  his  sins,  like  his  thoughts  and  his  cares,  were 
lovingly  cast  upon  the  One  Sure   Refuge.      He 
knew  that    salvation  was  the    absolute  and  free 
gift    of  God's  grace,   that  we  are    reconciled    to 
God  by  the  death  of  His  dear   Son;    and    the 
comfort    of    "the    bitter   passion    and    death    of 
Jesus    Christ,    who    had    therewith    made   satis- 
faction   before   God    ...    for   the   sins   of  the 


IMITATIO    CHRISTI  103 

whole    world,"    brought    to   his    heart    the   peace 
that  passeth  all  understanding. 

Tauler's    teaching    concerning    the    Christian's 
imitation  of  Christ  is  insistent  and  unmistakable. 
He  bids    us   turn    to   Christ    with    reverent    and 
expectant  spirit.     Thereafter,  we  must  gaze  both 
closely  and  deeply  into  the  glorious  image  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  maintaining  a  continual  earnest 
effort    and    aspiration    after    it.      Then    looking 
attentively  at  ourselves,  beholding  our  own  little- 
ness, we  shall    see   how  unlike   we    are  to   this 
image.     The  imitation  of  Christ  is  not  effected  by 
talking  much  and  eloquently  of  the   Incarnation 
and    bitter    sufferings    of  Christ,    by    presenting 
Him  to  our  imagination   as   He  trod  the  wine- 
press alone,  although  such  things  may  move  the 
sensibilities   of  dull  hearts.     But  In  such  excite- 
ment and  transport  and   ''mere  sweet  emotion" 
there  is  often    more  of   sense   and    self-pleasing 
than  of  true    love   to    God.     We    must   become 
like   unto  Christ    by   perfect  obedience,    and   by 
perseverance  and  growth  of  holiness  follow  "the 
lovely    example "    of   our    Blessed    Lord   Jesus 
Christ  to  our  life's  end.     The  righteous  spiritual 
man  is  nailed  with  Christ  to  the  cross,   "whose 
sufferings    bring   forth    in    him   the  living   fruits 


I04  TAULER 

of  the  Spirit."  Such  a  man  dies  to  self-will, 
self-complacency,  and  other  sinful  failings  ;  for, 
says  Tauler,  he  who  will  reach  up  unto  the 
Cross  of  Christ's  divine  nature,  must  first  be 
fashioned  into  the  likeness  of  His  crucifixion 
in  the  flesh.  Thus,  in  all  things,  ''  the  sacred 
example  and  sufferings  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
Jesus  Christ"  and  ''nothing  of  our  own,"  are 
to  be  our  stay.  The  life  of  Christ  is  left  "  as 
a  sacred  Testament  to  His  followers  in  this 
present  time,  who  are  converted  into  His 
dying  life,  that  they  may  remember  Him  when 
they  drink  of  His  cup,  and  walk  as  He  hath 
walked." 

Now,  some  of  us  fill'd  with  a  holy  fire 
The  Cross  and  the  Christ  have  kiss'd; 

We  have  sworn  to  achieve  our  soul's  desire 
On  book  and  evangeUst.^ 

The   soul    that  has  once  tasted  the  heavenly 

manna    knows    that    the    garbage    of    the    world 

can    never   again   satisfy,   and    nothing  can  ever 

separate  the  redeemed  and    restored    spirit  from 

the  Lord  of  life  and  glory. 

I  cannot  lose  the  presence  of  the  Lord : 
One  arm,  Humility,  takes  hold  upon 

1  A.  E.  Waite,  Sf range  Bouses  of  Sleep, 


THE    DIVINE    ABYSS  T05 

His  dear  Humanity  ;  the  other,   Love, 
Clasps  His  Divinity.     So  where  I  go, 
He  goes;  and  better  fire-walled  Hell  with  Him 
Than  golden-gated  Paradise  without.^ 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  Tauler's  ''pro- 
found spiritual  self-abasement,"  as  it  is  termed 
by  Vaughan,  led  to  his  *'  doctrine  of  self-abandon- 
ment," or,  otherwise  expressed,  how  his  concep- 
tion of  the  Quest  and  Way  determined  his  idea 
of  the  End  or  Goal.  Regarding  sin  as  selfish- 
ness, perfect  righteousness  or  holiness  was  the 
denial  and  complete  effacement  of  self.  Thus 
Tauler  speaks  of  a  man  flinging  himself  into  the 
divine  abyss,  in  which  he  dwelt  eternally  before 
he  was  created.  Tauler  held  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  to  be  carried  so  far  that  his  spirit  is, 
as  it  were,  sunk  and  lost  in  the  abyss  of  the 
Deity,  completely  freed  from  the  consciousness 
of  all  creature  distinctions.  He  says  :  "  All 
things  are  gathered  together  in  one  with  the 
divine  sweetness,  and  the  man's  being  is  so 
penetrated  with  the  divine  substance,  that  he 
loses  himself  therein,  as  a  drop  of  water  is 
lost  in  a  cask  of  strong  wine."  Elsewhere,  he 
says  that  when  God  finds  the  man  thus  simply 
1  J.  G.  Whittier,  Tmikr, 


io6  TAULER 

and  nakedly  turned  towards   Him,  the  Godhead 
bends    down    and    descends    into    the   depths    of 
the  pure,  waiting  soul,  and  transforms  the  created 
soul,  drawing  it  up   into   the  uncreated  essence, 
so  that  the   spirit   becomes   one  with   Him.     If 
it  be  asked:   ''What  remains  after  a  man  hath 
lost  himself  in  God  ?"    Tauler  answers:  "Nothing 
but  a  fathomless  annihilation  of  himself,  an  abso- 
lute ignoring  of  all  reference  to  himself  person- 
ally,  of  all   aims   of  his  own   in   will   and  heart, 
in  way,   in    purpose  and   in  use."     Tauler   does 
not    hesitate    to    affirm    that    the    man's    spirit 
becomes  so  sunk  in  God,  in  Divine  union,  that 
he    loses    all    sense    of    distinction,    "  and   there 
remains  a  secret,   still    union,   without   cloud   or 
colour."     Thus  God  is   "  the  unity  in  which  all 
multiplicity  is    transcended."       By  divine  grace, 
every  soul   may  thus  give  place  to   God  ;  only, 
it  *'  is  not  the  work  of  a  day  or  a  year."     "  Be 
not    discouraged ;    it    takes    time,    and    requires 
simplicity,   purity,   and  self-surrender " ;   and  the 
three  stages  of  the  mystic  ascent  "are  the  shortest 
road  to  it." 

"  Because  the  soul  is  a  creature,"  says  Tauler, 
"  it  must  cast  itself  out  of  itself,  and  in  its  hour 
of  contemplation    must   cast   out   all   saints   and 


"A   SECRET   UNION"  107 

angels,  because  these  are  creatures  and  hinder 
the  union  of  the  soul  with  God.  It  must  be 
rid  of  all  things,  in  need  of  nothing,  that  it 
may  come  to  God  in  His  likeness;  for  nothing 
unites  so  much  as  likeness,  and  receives  its  colour 
so  soon.  God  will  then  give  Himself  to  the 
faculties  of  the  soul,  so  that  the  soul  grows  in 
the  likeness  of  God  and  takes  His  colour.  The 
image  resides  in  the  soul's  powers,  the  likeness 
in  its  virtues,  and  the  Divine  colour  in  its  union. 
Thus  its  union  becomes  so  intimate  that  it  does 
not  work  its  works  in  its  creature  form,  but  in 
its  Divine  form,  wherein  it  is  united  to  God.  Its 
very  works  are  taken  from  it,  and  God  works  all 
its  works  in  His  form.  Finally,  while  it  beholds 
God  and  becomes  more  intimately  united  with 
Him,  the  union  is  of  such  a  nature  that  God 
empties  Himself  altogether  into  it,  and  draws 
it  so  completely  into  Himself  that  it  no  longer 
has  any  distinct  recognition  of  virtue  or  vice, 
or  of  the  marks  by  which  it  knows  what  it  is 
itself." 


CHAPTER    IX 
ST,  TERESA  1 

St.  Teresa  was  born  in  the  year  1515,  and 
died  after  a  most  beneficent  life,  aged  sixty-seven. 
She  was  canonised  at  Rome  in  1622.  As 
Dr.  Whyte  in  his  noble  appreciation  of  the 
saint  rightly  says  :  '*  Teresa's  was  one  of  those 
sovereign  souls  that  are  born  from  time  to  time 
as  if  to  show  us  what  our  race  was  created  for 
at  first,  and  for  what  it  is  still  destined.  She 
was  a  queen  among  women."  Of  her  sanctified 
energy,  extraordinary  tact,  of  her  practical,  as 
well  as  mystical  wisdom,  it  is  impossible  to  speak 
too  highly.  The  consummate  ability  with  which 
she  organised  the  numerous  communities  of  bare- 
footed Carmelites  testifies  to  *'her  powers  as  an 
organiser  and  ruler  of  men  and  women."  Doubt- 
less she  owed  much  of  her    natural   nobility  of 

1  The  translations  of  St.  Teresa's  writings  by  Woodhead, 
Lewis,  and  Dalton  may  be  warmly  commended  to  the 
reader. 

108 


VISIONS    AND   VOICES  109 

character  to  her  Castilian  ancestors,  but  the 
consistent  self-denial  of  her  life  was  due  to  her 
strenuous  and  unintermittent  cultivation  of  the 
graces  of  the  consecrated  soul,  and  her  ''complete 
conformity  to  the  will  of  God." 

As  Dr.  Inge  has  pointed  out,  Teresa  is  best 
known  as  a  visionary,  but  although  many  visions 
were  granted  to  her  during  the  early  years  spent 
in  the  convent,  there  was  a  long  period  in  which 
they  were  absent.  She  experienced  them  again 
between  the  ages  of  forty  and  fifty,  and  despite 
their  vivid  reality,  there  were  times  when  she 
felt  uncertain  as  to  their  character  and  import. 

The  first  heavenly  rapture  which  shook  her 
soul  came  to  her  when  in  the  act  of  reciting 
the  Veni  Creator,  when,  in  the  interior  of  her 
heart,  she  heard  these  thrilling  words  spoken  :  "  I 
will  have  thee  hold  converse,  not  with  men,  but 
angels."  In  her  autobiography,  which  she  wrote 
in  1562,  "at  the  bidding  of  her  confessor,"  she 
tells  us  that  the  reading  of  St.  Augustines 
Confessions  at  the  age  of  forty-one  *•  was  the 
turning  point  in  her  life."  As  she  read,  "  it 
was  just  as  if  the  Lord  called  "  her.  These  calls 
or  "locutions"  of  the  divine  which  she  heard 
in  her  visions  were  remarkable.      She  describes 


no  ST.   TERESA 

them  herself  with  perfect  calmness,  saying,  that 
the  words  were  very  clearly  formed  and  un- 
mistakable, though  not  heard  by  the  bodily  ear. 
"  They  are  quite  unlike  the  words  framed  by 
the  imagination,  which   are  muffled." 

There  is  no  escape,  she  tells  us,  in  this  ''locu- 
tion" of  God  addressed  to  the  soul,  for  in  spite 
of  ourselves  we  must  listen.  She  has  visions  of 
Christ  also,  in  which  she  sees  Him  not  with  the 
eyes  of  the  body,  but  with  the  eyes  of  the  soul. 
She  beholds  him  more  distinctly  than  would 
have  been  possible  with  the  eyes  of  the  body. 
One  such  occasion  she  describes  on  this  wise  : 
*'  Being  one  day  in  prayer,  our  Lord  was  pleased 
to  show^  me  His  sacred  hand,  of  excessive  and 
indescribable  beauty  ;  afterwards  His  Divine 
face,  and  finally,  at  mass,  all  His  most  sacred 
humanity." 

Her  practice  of  mental  prayer,  with  its  "quiet 
extraordinary  purity  and  spirituality,"  is  a  deeply 
significant  feature  of  her  life.  "  With  Teresa," 
says  Dr.  Whyte,  *'  literally  all  things  were 
sanctified,  and  sweetened,  and  made  fruitful  by 
prayer." 

She  says  herself  that  the  soul  which  begins 
to    walk    in    the    way    of    mental    prayer    with 


MENTAL   PRAYER  in 

resolution,  and  is  determined  not  to  care  much, 
neither  to  rejoice  nor  to  be  greatly  afflicted 
whether  sweetness  and  tenderness  be  denied  or 
granted  by  our  Lord,  has  already  travelled  a 
great  part  of  the  way.  In  fact,  Teresa's  con- 
ception of  prayer  is  so  far-reaching  and  com- 
prehensive that  it  becomes  practically  identified 
with  the  whole  domain  of  mystical  theology. 

In  prayer,  we  resign  our  souls  into  the  hands  of 
God ;  Teresa  mourns  that  we  are  so  long  and 
so  slow  in  thus  giving  up  our  hearts  to  God. 
''  If,  however,"  she  says,  *'  we  did  what  we  could, 
not  clinging  with  our  hearts  to  anything  what- 
soever in  this  world,  but  having  our  treasure  and 
our  conversation  in  heaven,  then  this  blessedness 
would  soon  be  ours,  as  all  Thy  saints  testify. 
God  never  withholds  himself  from  him  who  pays 
this  price  and  who  perseveres  in  seeking  Him. 
He  will,  little  by  little,  and  now  and  then, 
strengthen  and  restore  that  soul,  till  at  last  it  is 
victorious."  That  prayer  alone  is  effectual  which 
is  offered  by  a  soul  resolved  to  follow  the  Eternal 
Good — by  that  soul  which  is  willing  to  forsake  all 
for  God.  Teresa  confesses  that  all  her  failures 
in  obedience  were  the  consequence  of  not  leaning 
on   the   strong  pillar  of  prayer.      Her  practice  of 


112  ST.   TERESA 

mental  prayer,  which  from  her  twenty-fourth  year 

onwards    she   adopted,    led    her    into    the    realm 

of  those   higher  spiritual  experiences  which  are 

the  fruits   of  "  supernatural  prayer  and  mystical 

devotion." 

According  to  St.  Teresa  there  are  four  degrees 
of  prayer.  She  names  the  first  degree  simple 
mental  prayer.  In  this,  the  one  who  prays  is 
bidden  frequently  to  pause  and  think  with  whom 
he  speaks  ;  to  call  to  mind  his  own  sinfulness  ; 
and  to  set  before  himself  the  goal  to  which  he 
aspires. 

Teresa  writes  :  *'  In  prayer  it  is  far  best  to  be 
alone,  as,  for  our  example  and  instruction,  our 
Lord  always  was  when  He  prayed.  We  cannot 
talk  both  to  God  and  man  at  the  same  time  ; 
and  if  we  feel  too  much  alone,  and  must  have 
companionship,  no  companionship  is  comparable 
to  that  of  Christ.  Let  us  picture  and  represent 
Christ  to  ourselves  and  to  His  Father  as  always 
at  our  side.  Those  who  pray  with  proper  pre- 
paration— with  much  meditation  on  the  whole 
life  and  death  of  our  Lord,  on  their  own  death, 
on  the  last  day,  or  such  like — our  Lord  will  bring 
all  such  to  the  Port  of  Light."  .  .  .  ''  The  life 
of  prayer  is  simply  love  to  God  and  the  custom 


"THE    PRAYER   OF   QUIET"  113 

of  being  ever  with  Him."  Of  the  obtaining  of 
God's  presence  in  the  praying  soul,  she  says  : 
"  We  obtain  it  by  meditating  much  upon  our 
own  baseness,  our  neglect  and  ingratitude  shown 
toward  the  Son  of  God,  what  things  He  has  done 
for  us.  His  Passion  and  terrible  suffering, — His 
whole  life  so  full  of  affliction,  and  by  delighting 
ourselves  in  His  word  and  in  His  works,  and 
such  things  as  these."  Such  mental  prayer  ought 
to  be  practised  by  all  men,  and  it  is  the  beginning 
of  all  virtues. 

The  second  degree  is  called  the  prayer  of  quiet, 
and  it  is  supernatural.  In  this  the  will  is  absorbed 
and  taken  up  in  God.  In  a  passive  and  tranquil 
condition  the  soul  often  receives  wondrous  sweet- 
ness. The  soul  burns  with  love  without  knowing 
what  she  has  done  either  to  deserve,  or  to  prepare 
herself  for  such  rapture.  It  is  the  gift  of  God, 
and  He  gives  His  gifts  to  whomsoever  and 
whensoever  He  will. 

The  third  degree,  or  the  prayer  of  union, 
indicates  the  stage  at  which  the  powers  of  will, 
understanding  and  memory  are  quiescent,  and 
swallowed  up  in  God.  It  is  the  prayer  of  perfect 
contemplation.  At  such  seasons  God  works  in 
the  soul  that  which   far  transcends  and  overtops 

8 


114  ST.   TERESA 

all  the  powers  and  resources  even  of  the  renewed 
nature.  Teresa  adds  that  such  prayer  is  not 
necessary  to  salvation. 

The  last  degree  of  all  is  the  prayer  of  ecstasy. 
This  stage  is  the  rarest  and  most  privileged  of 
all.  In  this  all  the  natural  powers  ''  are  sunk  in 
a  divine  stupor."  The  ecstasy  never  lasts  very 
long — rarely,  indeed,  half  an  hour.  Teresa  is 
careful  and  sane  enough  to  add  that  we  must  come 
out  from  the  sweetest  and  most  rapturous  prayer, 
only  to  do  harder  and  still  harder  works  for  God 
and  our  neighbour.  "  For  my  part,"  she  says,  ''  I 
desire  no  other  gift  of  prayer  but  that  which  ends  in 
every  day  making  me  a  better  and  better  woman." 

Again  Teresa  writes  in  a  letter  to  Father 
Gratian  :  "It  is  important  to  remember,  regard- 
ing these  interior  things  of  the  Spirit,  that  the 
best  prayer  and  that  which  is  most  acceptable 
to  God,  is  that  which  produces  the  best  results. 
I  do  not  speak  now  of  the  many  desires  which 
the  soul  may  have,  for  although  these  are  good, 
they  are  not  always  such  as  our  self-love  repre- 
sents them.  I  speak  of  these  results  which  are 
confirmed  by  actions.  In  this  way  we  may  know 
what  desires  the  soul  has  for  God's  honour,  by 
her  true  anxiety   for  it,  and  by  her  diligence   in 


"THE    INTERIOR    CASTLE"  115 

employing  her  memory  and  understanding  in 
everything  that  may  please  Him,  that  so  she  may 
the  better  testify  her  love  for  Him." 

The  mysticism  of  St.  Teresa  is  largely  that 
of  the  quietist.  Although  she  does  not  adopt  the 
familiar  three-stage  mystic  ascent,  yet  the  Initia- 
tion, the  Quest,  and  the  Way  are  all  to  be  found 
in  her  exposition  of  the  mystic's  progress  which 
is  described  in  The  Interior  Castle.  There  are 
seven  apartments  in  the  Castle ;  the  innermost 
chamber  represents  the  centre  of  the  soul,  where 
God  dwells  ;  the  remaining  divisions  from  the 
outermost  to  the  central,  represent  ''the  advancing 
stages  of  discipline  and  privilege  through  which 
\      the  mystic  passes." 

Ere  the  soul  can  return  to  the  bosom  of  God 
it  must  cut  itself  away  from  all  earthly  and 
sensuous  things,  withdrawing  itself  from  all 
worldly  objects,  and  by  stern  discipline  fit  itself 
for  the  holy  quest.  The  most  Sacred  Humanity 
of  Christ,  however,  is  not  to  be  counted  among 
the  objects  from  which  we  have  to  withdraw. 

On  the  contrary,  Teresa  insists  that  the  soul 
may  place  itself  in  the  presence  of  Christ  and 
accustom  itself  to  many  acts  of  love  directed 
to   His    Sacred    Humanity,    and    remain    in    His 


ii6  ST.   TERESA 

presence  continually,  and  speak  to  Him,  pray 
to  Him  in  its  necessities,  and  complain  to  Him 
of  its  troubles  ;  be  merry  with  Him  in  its  joys, 
and  yet  not  forget   Him  because  of  them. 

Teresa's  spiritual  instructions  and  directions 
prove,  not  only  her  knowledge  of  the  mystic 
way,  but  her  insight  into  the  perversity  of  the 
human  will  and  the  sinfulness  of  the  human  heart. 

As  M.  Huysmans  truly  observes  :  '*  She  is  the 
geographer  and  hydrographer  of  the  sinful  soul. 
She  has  drawn  the  map  of  its  poles,  marked  its 
latitudes  of  contemplation  and  prayer,  and  laid  out 
all  the  interior  seas  and  lands  of  the  human  heart. 
Other  saints  have  been  among  those  heights  and 
depths  and  deserts  before  her,  but  no  one  has  left 
us  so  methodical  and  so  scientific  a  survey." 

After  the  soul  has  passed  through  the  stages 
of  detachment,  of  purgation  and  discipline,  the 
way  is  opened  up  to  the  higher  forms  of  con- 
templation. There  are  many  roads  leading  to  the 
many  mansions  of  heaven,  but  they  are  all  beset 
by  strange  and  sharp  spiritual  vicissitudes  ;  but 
the  one  thing  needful  is  to  abandon  ourselves  into 
the  hands  of  God.  We  are  to  think  ''  that  in  the 
whole  world  there  is  only  God  and  our  souls,'' 
and  the  human  will  must   become  so  conformed 


"A   SHARP    MARTYRDOM"  117 

to  the  divine  "  that  without  knowing  how  it  has 
become  a  captive,  it  gives  a  simple  consent  to 
become  the  prisoner  of  God,  for  it  knows  well 
what  it  is  to  be  the  captive  of  Him  it  loves." 
There  are  seasons  of  dryness  during  which  the 
soul  endures  all  the  miseries  of  despair,  and  there 
are  seasons  of  rapture,  albeit  often  accompanied 
by  a  certain  ''great  pain,"  in  which  the  enraptured 
soul  is,  as  it  were,  crucified  between  earth  and 
heaven,  enduring  its  passion.  But,  as  Teresa 
points  out,  *'  the  agony  carries  with  it  so  great 
a  joy  that  I  know  of  nothing  wherewith  to 
compare  it.  It  is  a  sharp  martyrdom,  full  of 
sweetness :  for  if  any  earthly  thing  be  then  offered 
to  the  soul,  even  though  it  may  be  that  which 
it  habitually  found  most  sweet,  the  soul  will  have 
none  of  it."  The  will  becomes  at  last  perfectly 
passive,  and  the  exercised  soul  at  rest.  Even  the 
understanding  ceases  from  its  normal  acts  and 
operations,  because,  in  mystical  theology,  "  God 
suspends  it,"  when  He  discloses  Himself  and 
His  ways  to  the  loved  and  loving  soul. 

In  St.  Teresa's  Way  of  Perfection — a  work 
of  her  ripest  spiritual  genius — we  have  what 
Mrs.  Cunninghame  Graham  calls  "  her  spiritual 
testament,"  and  in  this  book  "  the  maladies  of  the 


ii8  ST.   TERESA 

soul  "  and  its  wounds,  its  sins  and  its  weaknesses 
as  well  as  the  Source  of  its  recovery  and  life,  the 
divine  manifestations  with  which  it  is  visited  on  its 
upward  ascent  are  all  treated  of  with  consummate 
skill  and  great  power.  In  all  her  writing  she 
shows  herself  as  a  sure  guide  to  the  troubled  soul ; 
she  knows  the  way  because  she  has  trodden  it. 
Hear  her  as  she  cries,  "  Oh,  what  a  distress  it 
is  for  my  soul  to  have  to  return  to  hold  commerce 
with  this  world  after  having  had  its  conversation 
in  heaven  !  To  have  to  play  a  part  in  the  sad 
farce  of  this  earthly  life !  .  .  .  I  cannot  run  away 
from  this  world,  I  must  remain  in  it  till  my 
discharge  comes.  But,  meantime,  how  keen  is 
my  captivity ;  how  wretched  in  my  own  soul  am  I ! 
And  one  of  my  worst  distresses  is  this,  that  I  am 
alone  in  my  exile." 

Teresa's  teaching  on  the  indwelling  of  Christ 
in  the  human  soul  is  full  of  suggestiveness.  He 
is  the  very  Soul  of  the  soul.  He  engulfs  into 
Himself,  He  enlightens  and  strengthens  the 
soul.  In  a  beautiful  passage,  Teresa  speaks  of 
a  great  and  wonderful  palace  in  the  soul,  with 
its  structure  all  of  gold  and  precious  stones.  In 
this  palace  the  Great  King  is  the  guest.  He 
sits    on    the    innermost    seat    of    the   heart,    and 


THE    LORD'S    INDWELLING  119 

holds  it  to  be  His  best  and  bravest  throne. 
This  will  seem  to  some,  she  says,  a  silly  fiction  ; 
but  yet  to  believe  it,  fiction  as  it  is,  will  help 
the  soul  much.  They  are  happy  people  who 
have  once  got  a  hold  of  this  glorious  truth.  To 
possess,  throughout  this  long  and  uphill  pil- 
grimage of  ours,  the  constant  presence  of  our 
great  Exemplar  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  fortified 
against  all  the  powers  of  evil. 

No  company  is  comparable  to  the  company  of 
Christ.  Teresa  describes,  in  a  pictorial  manner, 
a  vision  of  Christ's  indwelling  in  her  soul,  in 
the  following  words  :  '*  One  day,  my  soul  sud- 
denly lapsed  into  a  state  of  recollection,  appearing 
to  me  as  a  bright  mirror,  the  whole  of  which 
was  perfectly  clear.  In  the  centre  of  this  was 
represented  to  me  Christ  our  Lord,  as  I  am 
accustomed  to  see  Him.  I  seemed  to  see  Him 
in  all  the  parts  of  my  soul  also,  clearly  as  in 
a  mirror,  and  at  the  same  time  (I  know  not 
how  to  express  it),  this  mirror  was  all  engraven 
in  the  Lord  Himself,  by  a  communication  ex- 
ceedingly loving,  and  which  I  cannot  describe. 
I  know  that  this  vision  was  of  great  advantage 
to  me,  both  then  and  every  time  I  have  called 
it    to    mind — more    especially    after    communion. 


120  ST.   TERESA 

I  was  given  to  understand  that  when  a  soul  is 
in  mortal  sin,  this  mirror  is  covered  with  a 
great  cloud,  and  grows  very  dark,  so  that  the 
Lord  can  neither  be  seen  nor  represented  in 
us,  though  He  is  always  present  as  the  Author 
of  our  being."  The  divine  indwelling,  Teresa 
affirms,  is  the  secret  of  victory  over  the  vain 
things  of  this  world,  of  deliverance  from  the 
manifold  lusts  that  war  against  the  soul,  and  of 
all  progress  towards  the  Port  of  Light. 

In  the  higher  stages  of  Mystical  Theology, 
Teresa  speaks  of  the  experiencing  of  divine 
truths  by  supernatural  illumination,  such  illumina- 
tion taking  place  when  the  soul  is  in  a  condition 
of  perfect  passivity.  Writing  in  her  autobiography 
of  such  an  experience,  she  says,  **  I  learnt  some 
things  without  the  help  of  words,  and  that  more 
clearly  than  those  things  which  were  told  me 
in  words.  I  understood  exceedingly  deep  truths 
concerning  the  Truth,  more  than  I  could  have 
done  through  the  teaching  of  many  learned  men." 
Crashaw  speaks  of  the  saint's  "angelical  height 
of  speculation  "  ;  and  a  great  multitude  of  humble 
hearts,  whose  flame  of  love  has  been  kindled  at 
the  same  altar  on  which  "Teresa  of  Jesus"  laid 
down  her  life,  would  acknowledge  the  immense 

/ 


"THE  FLAMING  HEART"  121 

profit  and  delight  they  have  found  in  aspirin^/ 
with  her  after  the  highest  things  that  mind 
and  soul  can  attain. 

O  sweet  incendiary !    shew  here  thy  art 

Upon  this  carcass  of  a  cold  hard  heart ; 

Let  all  thy  scatter'd  shafts  of  light  that  play 

Among  the  leaves  of  thy  large  books  of  day, 

Combined  against  this  breast  at  once  break  in 

And  take  away  from  me  myself  and  sin ; 

This  gracious  robbery  shall  thy  bounty  be, 

And  thy  best  fortune  such  fair  spoils  of  me. 

O  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  desires  ! 

By  all  thy  dower  of  lights  and  fires  ; 

By  all  the  eagle  in  thee,  all  the  dove; 

By  all  thy  lives  and  deaths  of  love  ; 

By  thy  large  draughts  of  intellectual  day, 

And  all  thy  thirsts  of  love  more  large  than  they 

By  all  thy  brim-filled  bowls  of  fierce  desire  ; 

By  thy  last  morning's  draught  of  liquid  fire  ; 

By  the  full  kingdom  of  that  final  kiss 

That  seized  thy  parting  soul,  and  sealed  thee  His ; 

By  all  the  heavens  thou  hast  in  Him, 

(Fair  sister  of  the  Seraphim!); 

By  all  of  Him  we  have  in  thee, 

Leave  nothing  of  myself  in  me  : 

Let  me  so  read  thy  life,  that  I 

Unto  all  life  of  mine  may  die.^ 

^  Crashaw,  The  Flaming  Heart. 


CHAPTER   X 

ST.  JOHN  OF  THE  CROSS  ^ 

Dr.  Inge  has  written  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross 
that  he  '*  presents  the  life  of  holiness  in  a 
grim  and  repellent  aspect."  Many  students  of 
mysticism  will,  however,  regard  this  as  a  mis- 
chievous misstatement — only  possible  to  one 
who  has  little  or  no  sympathy  with  the  ascetic 
austerities  which  St.  John  practised  so  unremit- 
tently.  His  writings  display  a  similar  Quietistic 
tendency  to  that  which  was  characteristic  of 
St.  Teresa,  though  John's  turbulent  and  fiery 
disposition  is  in  marked  contrast  to  Teresa's. 
''  It  is  impossible,"  writes  Vaughan,  "  not  to 
recognise  a  certain  grandeur  in  such  a  man. 
Miserably  mistaken  as  he  was,  he  is  genuine 
throughout  as  mystic  and  ascetic.  Every  bitter 
cup  he  would  press  to  the  lips  of  others  he  had 
first  drained  himself."     Further,    Vaughan   even 

1  An  admirable  translation  of  the  works  of  St.  John  of  the 
Cross  is  that  by  David  Lewis. 

122 


"THE   OBSCURE    NIGHT"  123 

admits  "  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  mysticism 
of  John  takes  the  very  highest  ground.  It  looks 
almost  with  contempt  upon  the  phantoms,  the 
caresses,  the  theurgic  toys  of  grosser  mystics." 

In  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel  and  The 
Obsciwe  Night  of  the  Soul,  which  he  finished  in 
the  convent  of  Pegnuela,  St.  John  of  the  Cross 
describes  the  mystic  pathway  to  union  with  God, 
with  the  unerring  certainty  of  one  to  whom  the 
inner  way  is  familiar  ground.  '*  The  journey  of 
the  soul  to  the  Divine  union,"  says  St.  John,  \^^^ 
"is  called  night  for  three  reasons:  the  point 
of  departure  is  privation  of  all  desire,  and  com- 
plete detachment  from  the  world ;  the  road  is 
by  faith,  which  is  like  night  to  the  intellect  ; 
the  Goal,  which  is  God,  is  incomprehensible 
while  we  are  in  this  life." 

St.  John  passed  through  the  obscure  night, 
and  he  is  a  sure  guide  to  all  those  who  are 
starting  out  on  the  same  divine  quest.  He  is 
a  true  hierophant  to  the  spiritually  perplexed, 
a  real  unfolder  of  divine  mysteries  to  exercised 
wayfarers. 

What  may  be  called  the  central  principle  of 
St.  John's  teaching  is  that  of  complete  detach- 
ment from  the  things  of  the  world.     Unless  the 


124  ST.   JOHN    OF   THE   CROSS 

soul  cuts  itself  away  from  these,  the  mystic 
ascent  is  an  impossible  ideal.  He  says  ex- 
pressly, that  in  order  to  unite  ourselves  to  the 
Infinite  we  must  surrender  finite  things  without 
reserve.  It  is  not  possible  that  created  things 
should  serve  as  a  ladder  to  the  Uncreated 
Source  of  all — they  are  only  a  hindrance  and 
a  snare,  and  the  moment  the  soul  attempts  to 
rest  in  them  it  ceases  to  advance  towards  the 
Infinite.  When  the  soul  begins  to  dwell  upon 
anything,  it  ceases  to  cast  itself  upon  the  AIL 

Wise    therefore,   and    wise   above    all,    is    he   who   does  not 

swerve  aside, 
But  knows  to  his  greatest  need  on  earth  is  service  of  earth 

denied  ; 
Who  least  things  asking  of  flesh  and  blood  and  less  than 

the  least  of  rest, 
Goes   on   demanding   the   greater   good   and   disdaining   the 

second  best. 

If  we  empty  our  spirit  of  all  created  things, 
we  shall  then  walk  in  the  divine  light,  for  God 
bears  no  resemblance  to  any  created  thing.  The 
soul  must  go  forth,  abandoning  itself  in  pure 
faith  to  darkness.  This  world  is  "beyond  the 
shadow  of  a  dream,"  and  the  mystic  presses 
onward  towards  the  great  reality. 

First,  the  soul  must  pass  through  the  obscure 


THE    NIGHT   OF   THE   SENSE  125 

night  of  the  sense,   an   experience  which   comes 
to  many.     The  neophyte  may  mark  this  by  the 
absence  of  incHnation  towards  any  created  thing. 
It    is   a    process    in    which    vigil    and    purgation 
fulfil  their  perfect  work  accompanied  with  much 
painfulncss   and  weariness.      It  often  succeeds  a 
period  of  spiritual  luxury   and   gratification,   and 
is    frequently   characterized   by   anxiety   lest   the 
soul  should   be  turning  back   from  God.     Often 
there   is  an  apparently  unaccountable  incapacity 
for  meditation   which  tortures  and  torments  the 
soul.     Yet  at  times   the  soul  is  visited  by  won- 
drous raptures  and  delights,  enjoying  even  now 
a    foretaste    of    those    pleasures    which    are   for 
evermore. 

The  second  stage  is  the  night  of  the  spirit, 
which  only  falls  upon  those  souls  that  have 
made  assured  progress  amid  spiritual  things. 
St.  John  warns  his  readers  that  few  persons 
are  willing  to  endure,  even  for  the  greatest 
end,  the  least  spiritual  solicitude  and  mortifica- 
tion, and  still  fewer  who  resolve  to  labour  with 
firm  patience  till  they  attain  the  Goal  of  all 
human  endeavour.  During  this  second  night 
the  purification  of  the  spirit  takes  place— a 
purgation   which   is    vital    to  the   spirit.      In   this 


126  ST.   JOHN   OF  THE   CROSS 

our  desires  after  spiritual  goods  often  expire, 
and  all  our  feelings  become  "  barren  and  re- 
strained." At  this  time  "the  deserted  soul 
cannot  think,  or  pray,  or  praise  as  of  old,"  and 
it  begins  to  fear  that  ''pitiless  purgation  and 
privation  absolute  are  about  to  make  the  second 
night  not  night  only,  but  midnight."  Sometimes 
the  soul  is  misled  by  vain  visions  and  lying 
voices,  but  at  other  times  it  is  kindled  by 
heavenly  manifestations  and  experiences  an  influx 
of  God.  "  Infused  contemplation  or  mystical 
theology,"  as  St.  John  terms  it,  is  a  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  this  state.  Wondrous  visions  and 
beatific  manifestations  visit  and  enlighten  the 
soul,  inflaming  it  with  "  a  passion  of  divine 
love."  Light  begins  to  gleam  with  something 
of  the  brilliance  of  the  perfect  day.  We  see 
the  glow  of  a  rosy  dawn.  The  thick  and  heavy 
clouds  that  oppress  the  soul,  confining  it  and 
keeping    it   alien    and    separate    from    God,    flee 

away. 

But  ask  not  that  joy  be  with  you; 

Light  things  are  by  joy  express'd : 
Unto  us  the  deeps  are  speaking, 
Past  the  sadness  of  their  seeking 

Is  God's  graveness  and  God's  rest.^ 

^  A.  E.  Waite,  Stra?ige  Houses  of  Sleep. 


THE    NIGHT   OF   THE   WILL  127 

We  are  not  to  place  an  undue  emphasis  or 
reliance  even  on  the  visions  and  manifestations 
vouchsafed  to  us  ;  for,  says  St.  John,  the  higher 
we  attain,  ''the  less  of  such  manifestation"  do 
we  meet.  He  gives  an  impressive  warning 
against  "the  Epicureans,  who  seek  the  delight 
of  the  spirit  rather  than  true  devotion."  Our 
duty  is  to  press  forward  to  the  prize  of  our  high 
calling  of  God,  heedless  of  divine  favours  given 
or  withheld.  Certainly  on  no  account  are  we  to 
seek  them. 

The  third  stage  is  the  night  of  the  memory 
and  the  will,  to  which  not  many  attain.  Here 
the  soul  is  enswathed  in  "  a  limitless  expanse  of 
calm " ;  the  will  "  has  gone  out  of  itself,  and 
become  in  a  sort  divine";  it  now  "sinks  into 
profound  oblivion."  The  mystic  now  becomes 
the  possessor  of  the  highest  mystical  wisdom, 
and  attains  a  knowledge  of  "  things  so  sublime 
that  their  proper  idiom  is  for  them  to  be  per- 
ceived, felt,  and  wrapped  in  silence."  He  passes 
from  this  oblivion  into  a  supernatural  state,  in 
which  his  powers  are  transformed  into  .divine 
activities.  His  going  forth  into  the  divine  dark 
has  crowned  him  with  happiness,  for  he  has 
been  "  straightway  elevated  to  operations  entirely 


128  ST.   JOHN    OF   THE   CROSS 

divine — to  most  familiar  intercourse  with  God." 
His  understanding,  once  wrapped  in  darkness, 
"  has  passed  from  a  human  to  a  divine  con- 
dition." From  the  night  of  his  spirit  and  his 
natural  powers  he  has  been  delivered  into  the 
uncreated  light. 

The  following  is  Mr.  David  Lewis's  transla- 
tion of  T/ie  Song  of  the  Obscure  Alight,  by 
St.  John  of  the  Cross  : 

In  an  obscure  night ! 

With  anxious  love  inflamed, 

O  happy  lot ! 
Forth  unobserved  I  went, 
My  house  being  now  at  rest. 

In  darkness  and  obscurity, 
By  the  secret  ladder  disguised, 

O  happy  lot ! 
In  darkness  and  concealment, 
My  house  being  now  at  rest. 

In  that  happy  night, 
In  secret,  seen  of  none. 
Seeing  nought  myself, 
Without  other  light  or  guide. 
Save  that  which  in  my  heart  was  burning. 

That  light  guided  me, 

More  surely  than  the  noonday  sun. 

To  the  place  where  He  was  waiting  for  me, 
Whom  I  knew  well, 
And  where  none  but  He  appeared. 


"THE    INTERIOR   TRANSLATION"       129 

O  guiding  night ! 

0  night  more  lovely  than  the  dawn ! 
O  night,  that  hast  united 

The  Lover  with  His  beloved ! 
And  changed  her  into  her  Love. 

On  my  flowery  bosom, 
Kept  whole  for  Him  alone, 
He  reposed  and  slept. 

1  kept  Him,  and  the  wooing 
Of  the  cedars  fanned  Him. 

Then  His  hair  floated  in  the  breeze 
That  blew  from  the  turret. 

He  struck  me  on  the  neck 
With  his  gentle  hand. 
And  all  sensation  left  me. 

I  continued  in  oblivion  lost. 

My  head  was  resting  on  my  Love. 

I  fainted,  and  was  abandoned, 
And,  amid  the  lilies  forgotten, 
Threw  all  my  cares  away. 

As  in  the  night  of  the  spirit,  all  the  mystic's 
powers  and  affections  were  renovated  by  **  the 
despoliation  of  the  old  man  "  to  such  a  degree 
that  their  very  nature  seemed  changed  so  that 
they  relished  only  spiritual  and  divine  delights, 
so  now,  in  the  night  of  the  memory  and  the  will, 
the  mystic's  energies  are  changed  into  the  Divine. 
Having    lost    entirely     human     knowledge    and 

9 


./ 


I30  ST.   JOHN    OF   THE   CROSS 

human  feelings,  the  mystic  receives  divine  know- 
ledge and  divine  feelings.  Of  this  state  St.  John 
writes  :  "  One  might  say,  in  a  sense,  that  the  soul 
gives  God  to  God,  for  she  gives  to  God  all  that 
she  receives  of  God,  and  He  gives  Himself  to 
her.  This  is  the  mystical  love-gift,  wherewith 
the  soul  repayeth  all  her  debt." 

O  Love  of  all !    for  love  of  thine  and  thee, 

?•■ 

Yet  only  love  us,  and  in  love  like  thine, 

Our  soul's  love-flaming  shall  be  meet  to  hold — 

O  love  beyond  all  love  !   the  love  of  thee. 

Without  the  love  of  God,  union  with  God  is 
impossible.  No  man  can  ignore  and  despise  the 
world  and  take  up  his  heavy  and  cruel  cross, 
unless  the  love  of  God  hath  been  shed  abroad 
in  his  heart  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Unless  the  soul 
has  a  love  of  God  which  constrains  her,  she 
cannot  abandon  whatsoever  is  pleasant,  and 
embrace  whatsoever  is  painful.  No  spiritual 
achievement  is  possible  apart  from  love.  "  Love," 
says  St.  John,  ''  unites  the  soul  to  God,  and  the 
more  degrees  of  love  the  soul  holds,  so  much 
the  more  deeply  does  it  enter  into  God,  and  is 
concentrated  into  Him."  By  love,  the  soul  finds 
its  way  back  to  its  centre,  and  ''  we  call  that  the 
soul's  deepest  centre  which   is  the  furthest  goal 


THE    LOVE    OF   GOD  131 

to  which  its  essence,  virtue,  and  power  of  move- 
ment and  operation  can  reach  ;  and  this  centre  is 
God." 

The  following  words  sufficiently  indicate  the 
love  which  St.  John  of  the  Cross  bore  to  his 
Lord  : 

"  O  sweetest  love  of  God,  too  little  known  ;  he 
who  has  found  Thee  is  at  rest ;  let  everything  be 
changed,  O  God,  that  we  may  rest  in  Thee. 
Everywhere  with  Thee,  O  my  God,  everywhere 
all  things  with  Thee  ;  as  I  wish,  O  my  Love,  all 
for  Thee,  nothing  for  me — nothing  for  me,  every- 
thing for  Thee.  All  sweetness  and  delight  for 
Thee,  none  for  me — all  bitterness  and  trouble 
for  me,  none  for  Thee.  O  my  God,  how  sweet 
to  me  Thy  presence,  Who  art  the  Supreme 
Good  ! " 


CHAPTER   XI 
JACOB  BEHMEN^ 

"  I  AM  an  instrument  of  God,"  writes  Jacob 
Behmen,  "  wherewith  He  doth  what  He  will." 
Certainly  no  one  acquainted  with  the  Aurora 
or  the  Signatura  Reru7n,  The  Three  Principles 
or  the  Threefold  Life  of  Man,  The  Way  to 
Christ  and  the  Forty  Questions,  the  Four 
Co7nplexions  and  the  Mysterium  Magnum,  not 
to  speak  of  the  fragmentary  Theoscopia,  will 
question  for  a  moment  the  truth  of  Behmen's 
own  statement. 

Born  in  the  year  1575,  he  became  a  shoemaker 
and  glover  in  Gorlitz.  The  gravity  and  thought- 
fulness  of  his  early  days  deepened  with  the 
dawn  of  manhood,  accentuated,  no  doubt,  by  the 
lamentable  state  of  things  existing  around  him  in 
Church  and  society.  He  was  not  a  lettered  man, 
and  did  not  begin  to  write  until  within  twelve 
years   of    his    death.      But    despite    his    lack    of 

1  Thoughts  on  the  Spiritual  Life,  by  Jacob  Behmen,  trans- 
lated by  Miss  Rainy,  is  a  small,  but  well-chosen  selection  of 
passages  from  Behmen's  writings. 

132 


SPIRITUAL  INSIGHT  AND  GENIUS  133 
education,  and  the  strong  inllucnce  which  his 
patient  study  of  Paracelsus  exerted  over  his 
naturally  obscure  style,  no  competent  and  sym- 
pathetic reader  of  his  writings  can  doubt  the 
stupidity  and  perversity  of  the  verdict  of  John 
Wesley,  who  sums  up  Behmen's  work  as  "  sublime 
nonsense,  inimitable  bombast,  fustian  not  to  be 
paralleled."  Saint-Martin  says  the  right  word 
when  he  speaks  of  Behmen  as  "  this  incom- 
parable author." 

Behmen  possessed  a  natural  genius  for  the 
great  problems  of  philosophy  and  theology,  and 
no  student  will  be  inclined  to  dispute  what  Henry 
More  called  "  the  sagacity  of  his  imagination." 
But  the  secret  of  the  profundity  and  insight  of 
Behmen's  writings  is  to  be  found  in  his  own  ;^^ 
words  :  "  the  truth  of  God  did  burn  in  my  bones 
till  I  took  pen  and  ink  and  began  to  set  down 
what  I  had  seen."  He  also  affirmed  that  when  — 
the  Spirit  of  God  was  taken  away  from  him  he 
could  not  even  read,  so  as  to  understand,  what 
he  had  himself  written.  Without  minimising  the 
influence  of  the  astrological  and  theosophic  books 
which  he  confesses  to  have  studied,  and  making 
due  acknowledgment  of  his  spiritual  and  mental 
indebtedness    to    Schwenkfeld   and    Weigel,    we 


134  JACOB    BEHMEN 

are  compelled  to  believe  Behmen  when  he 
states  expressly  that,  being  divinely  illumined,  he 
was  constrained  to  write  the  record  of  his  visions. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-five,  as  he  sat  meditating 
in  his  little  room  at  Gorlitz,  Behmen  had  a  vision 
of  the  origin  and  principles  of  the  Divine  and 
universal  process.  This  first  illumination,  he 
says,  came  to  him  as  he  was  gazing  on  the 
bright  light  which  was  reflected  from  a  tin 
vessel,  as  the  brilliant  rays  of  the  sun  flashed 
into  his  room.  His  first  impulse  was  to  distrust 
the  import  and  significance  of  the  vision,  and 
he  attempted  to  dispel  it,  but  without  effect. 
It  was  not  till  twelve  years  afterwards,  and  when 
he  had  experienced  a  second  illumination,  which 
revealed  with  greater  certainty  and  fulness  the 
truths  he  had  previously  seen,  that  he  began 
to  write  the  Aurora. 

In  this  vision  he  says  that  he  saw  the  Being 
of  all  beings,  the  Ground  and  the  Abyss,  the 
birth  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  the  origin  and  first 
state  of  this  world  and  of  all  created  things. 
In  himself  he  saw  the  divine  or  angelic  world, 
the  dark  world  or  the  original  of  nature,  and 
the  external  or  visible  world  as  a  creation  out 
of  the  two  inner  or  spiritual  worlds.      He  saw  the 


HIS   VISIONS  135 

whole  Being  in  good  and  evil,  their  origin  in 
each  other,  all  of  which  moved  him  to  great 
wonder  and  joy.  But  though  he  saw  it  well, 
as  in  a  great  deep,  in  his  inward  man,  yet  he 
could  not  unfold  it.  From  time  to  time,  how- 
ever, it  opened  itself  within  him,  like  a  growing 
plant.  For  twelve  years  he  carried  it  about 
within  him,  feeling  a  strong  inward  impulse, 
unable  to  bring  it  forth  in  any  outward  form.  At 
length  it  fell  upon  him,  like  a  bursting  shower, 
and  all  that  he  could  bring  into  outwardness,  that 
he  wrote  down. 

Behmen  says  explicitly  that  he  did  not  write 
from  books,  from  the  doctrine  and  science  of 
men,  but  from  the  book  which  was  opened  within 
him — namely,  the  book  of  the  glorious  image  of 
God.  This  book  was  opened  for  him  to  read, 
and  therein  did  he  study.  It  had  but  three 
leaves,  the  three  principles  of  Eternity,  yet  in 
them  he  found  the  foundation  of  the  world  and 
all  mystery.  To  one  who  lived,  as  did  Behmen, 
"  in  weakness  and  childhood,  and  the  simplicity 
of  Christ,"  we  need  not  marvel  that  the  gate 
of  the  Divine  Mystery  was  at  times  so  opened 
to  him  that  in  one  quarter  of  an  hour  he  saw 
and  knew  more  than  if  he  had  been  many  years 


136  JACOB   BEHMEN 

together  at  a  university.  "  Jacob  Behmen,"  says 
Dr.  Whyte,  ''is  of  the  race  of  the  seers,  and  he 
stands  out  a  very  prince  among  them."  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  the  fruitful  influence  of  Behmenism 
on  the  religious  thought  of  England — penetrating 
and  beneficent  as  it  was — has  not,  as  yet,  been 
adequately  recognised  and  appraised.  The 
testimony  of  William  Law,  perhaps  the  ablest 
of  all  Behmen's  expositors,  is  given  in  the 
following  words  :  ''  Next  to  the  Scriptures,  my 
only  book  is  the  illuminated  Behmen.  For  the 
whole  kingdom  of  grace  and  nature  was  opened 
in  him.  In  reading  Behmen  I  am  always  at 
home,  and  kept  close  to  the  kingdom  of  God 
that  is  within  me." 

The  following  lines  of  Tennyson  may  very 
fitly  be  used  to  express  what  was  a  central  fact 
to  Jacob  Behmen,  and  indeed  to  all  who  have 
walked  **  the  interior  way  "  : 

If  thou  would'st  hear  the  Nameless,  and  descend 
Into  the  Temple-cave  of  thine  own  self. 
There,  brooding  by  the  central  altar,  thou 
May'st  haply  learn  the  Nameless  hath  a  voice, 
By  which  thou  wilt  abide,  if  thou  be  wise ; 
For  knowledge  is  the  swallow  on  the  lake, 
That  sees  and  stirs  the  surface-shadow  there 
But  never  yet  hath  dipt  into  the  Abysm. 


THE    NEW    BIRTH  137 

The  deep  teaching  and  illuminating  doctrine 
of  Behmen  is  the  outcome  of  the  vivid  revela- 
tions, experiences,  and  exercises  through  which 
he  had  passed.  In  it  are  blended  the  subjective, 
the  speculative,  and  the  symbolic  types  of 
mysticism  in  a  very  remarkable  way.  On  all 
the  high  themes  of  which  he  treats,  Behmen 
displays  the  lofty  sweep  of  his  imagination,  but 
nowhere  with  greater  insight  than  when  he  deals 
"  specially  of  man  and  his  soul."  What  has  been 
called  ''  the  pith  and  drift  of  all  Behmen's 
writings "  is  the  fact  of  regeneration  or  the 
New  Birth,  of  which  he  writes  in  The  Three- 
fold Life  of  Man,  This  new  birth  which  the 
soul  needeth,  he  says,  is  "a  turning  towards 
God,  and  an  entering  into  Him."  This  is  the 
stone  of  the  philosophers,  and  it  will  not  be 
found  in  the  ways  of  strife  or  of  earthly  wisdom. 
Everything  depends  on  the  will,  and  not  on 
the  understanding.  We  must  forsake  all  that 
is  earthly,  and  cast  all  our  sins  by  which  we 
are  led  captive  away  into  the  mercy  of  God. 
We  are  to  flee  to  God  for  our  freedom  and  for 
the  enlightening  of  His  Spirit.  Behmen  bids 
us  not  discuss  much,  but  contend  earnestly,  for 
heaven  must  be  stormed  and  hell  must  tremble. 


138  JACOB   BEHMEN 

With  sacred  vehemence  we  must  commit  our 
will  and  imagination  eternally  to  God.  Thus 
shall  we  experience  wonders.  Speedily  shall 
we  find  One  within  us,  who  will  help  us  to 
struggle,  to  fight,  and  to  pray. 

So  we  find  Behmen  writing  :  *'  Even  as  light 
possesseth  a  property  other  than  fire,  and  giveth 
itself  up,  not  as  fire  that  consumeth  itself,  so 
the  holy  life  of  humility  blossometh  out  of  death 
when  self-will  dies,  and  the  loving  will  of  God 
alone  reigneth  and  worketh  in  all."  Love  in 
its  strength  and  virtue,  in  its  height  and  great- 
ness, cannot  be  grasped,  says  Behmen,  without 
the  death  of  the  will.  "  If  thou  desirest  to  grasp 
her,  she  will  flee  from  thee,  but  if  thou  givest 
thyself  entirely  and  utterly  to  her,  thy  will  shall 
become  as  dead,  and  love  will  then  become 
the  life  of  thy  nature.  Then  thou  shalt  live 
not  to  thy  own  will,  but  to  her  will,  for  thy 
will  shall  become  her  will.  Then,  being  as 
it  were  dead  to  thyself,  thou  shalt  live  to 
God." 

Elsewhere,  Behmen  says  we  may  set  our  'Teft- 
hand  will  "  to  the  pursuit  of  our  daily  calling, 
but  our  "  right-hand  will "  must  be  directed 
towards  God  and  the   Eternal.     We  are  to  re- 


ABIDING    IN    CHRIST  139 

member  that  we  are  but  day-labourers,  and  as 
those  who  listen  fur  the  voice  that  shall  call  us 
home. 

The  greatest  and  the  most  important  thing  is 
to  give  ourselves  utterly  to  Christ,  to  place 
everything  at  His  disposal.  If  we  possess  Him, 
He  will  teach  us  what  to  forsake  and  what  to 
discourage,  and  wisdom  will  be  given  us,  and 
He  will  work  in  us  that  which  is  well  pleasing 
in  His  sight.  There  is  one  book  which  we  all 
possess  that  leadeth  to  God.  Every  man  has  it 
in  himself.  It  is  the  dear  name  of  God,  and  its 
letters  are  the  flames  of  love  which  He  has 
revealed  to  us  in  the  blessed  name  of  Jesus. 
To  ponder  these  same  letters  in  your  heart  and 
spirit  is  enough.  To  be  born  again  into  the 
life  and  spirit  of  Christ  is  to  possess  all  God  is 
and  can  be.  The  New  Birth  is  a  divine  life, 
derived  from  Christ  who  is  the  true  Vine ;  to 
experience  this  is  to  have  *'  the  new  life  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

Behmen's  teaching  on  the  indwelling  of  Christ 
in  us  is  singularly  rich  and  full.  Behmen  believes 
most  fervently  that  "  there  is  no  grace  whereby 
we  can  come  to  adoption,  save  simply  in  the 
blood   and   death    of    Christ,"    and    that    "  Holy 


I40  JACOB    BEHMEN 

Scripture  everywhere  testifieth  that  we  are  justi- 
fied from  sin,  not  by  meritorious  works  of  ours, 
but  through  the  blood  and  death  of  Christ "  ; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  he  lays  great  stress  on 
''  the  inward  power  of  Christ's  death."  He 
affirms  that  no  man  is  a  Christian  who  simply 
comforts  himself  with  the  suffering,  death,  and 
satisfaction  of  Christ,  imputing  it  to  himself  as 
a  gift  of  favour,  and  still  remains  a  wild  beast 
and  unregenerate.  No  show  of  grace  imputed 
from  without  can  make  a  true  Christian.  If  the 
sweet  sacrifice  of  Jesus  is  to  avail  for  us  it  must 
be  wrought  in  us  ;  the  Father  must  communicate, 
or  beget  His  Son  in  us,  so  that  we  may  appre- 
hend Him  in  His  word  of  promise.  *'  Then," 
says  Behmen,  ''  I  put  Him  on,  in  His  entire 
process  of  justification,  in  my  inward  ground  ; 
and  straightway  there  begins  in  me  the  killing  of 
the  wrath  of  the  devil,  death,  and  hell,  from  the 
inward  power  of  Christ's  death."  We  become 
dead  to  self ;  but  Christ  worketh  in  us  when 
He  ariseth  within.  We  are  inwardly  dead, 
and  He  is  our  life;  we  live  in  Him,  and  not 
in  our  self-hood.  With  our  whole  desire  and 
will,  we  "  enter  into  the  rose-garden  of  our 
Redeemer,  Jesus  Christ,"  that  the  divine  breath 


SYMBOLISM  141 

may  breathe  into  our  spirits,  and  our  life  be 
hid  with  Christ  in  God.  We  must  make  room 
in  our  hearts  for  the  divine  love,  that  Christ 
may  there  raise  His  kingly  palace  against  death 
and  hell,  and  Himself  for  ever  reign  therein. 
*' A  true  Christian,"  says  Behmen,  "does  not 
know  himself." 

Behmen,  like  other  mystics,  recognised  the  place 
and  power  of  symbols.  In  the  Sigfiahcra  Re7^tim 
he  points  out  that  all  created  things  have  two 
characteristics — an  inner  and  invisible  essence, 
and  an  external  and  visible  form.  There  is  an 
inward  and  outward  world  in  which  all  things  live, 
and  the  outward  always  indicates,  more  or  less 
clearly,  the  inward.  The  whole  external  world 
is  a  symbol  of  the  internal  and  invisible  world. 
It  is  by  the  external  form  of  all  creatures  that 
their  hidden  spirit  is  made  known.  Everywhere 
there  are  gates  opening  on  the  Great  Mystery. 
To  enter  them  would  be  the  beginning  of  our 
redemption,  for  it  would  mark  our  deliverance 
from  exile,  and  our  return  to  union  with  God. 
Symbols  may  awake  the  inward  life  of  the  soul 
and  lead  to  "  the  Gate  of  the  Great  Mystery," 
for  as  Behmen  says,  "  Paradise  is  still  in  the  world, 
but  man   is   not  in  paradise,  unless   he    be  born 


142  JACOB    BEHMEN 

again  of  God  ;  in  that  case  he  stands  therein  in 
his  new  birth."  And  when  the  centre  of  all  being 
is  apprehended,  there  rises  in  the  heart  a  joy 
that  surpasseth  all  other,  for  then  the  soul  knows 
that  the  time  is  nigh  when  it  shall  *'  regain  the 
flowers  of  paradise  in  the  new  man." 

Behmen  is  careful  to  preserve  the  true  difference 
between  eternal  and  transitory  creatures,  and  he 
never  falls  into  the  error  of  Pantheism.  He  says 
that  what  he  relates  in  succession  takes  place 
simultaneously  in  God,  and  what  he  describes 
separately  is  one  in  God.  God  needs  neither 
method  nor  medium,  and  therefore  the  eternal 
nature  is  not  His  instrument  for  creating  the 
visible  universe.  With  God  thought  and  realisa- 
tion take  place  together,  and  are  in  Him  identical. 
It  is  true  that  the  power  of  God  is  in  the  fruits 
of  the  earth,  and  identifies  itself  with  the  gene- 
rative processes  of  nature,  for  "  God  filleth  all 
things,"  but  neither  nature  nor  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  are  God.  "  I  say,"  says  Behmen,  "  God 
gives  to  all  life  its  power,  gives  power  to  every 
creature  according  to  its  desire,  whether  that 
power  be  used  for  good  or  evil.  .  .  .  He  com- 
municates His  power  to  all  His  nature  and  works, 
and   everything  appropriates  that   power  of  His 


''THE    DEEP    DOOR"  143 

according  to  its  property.  One  appropriates 
darkness,  another  light  ;  the  appetite  of  each 
demands  what  is  proper  to  it,  and  the  whole 
substance  is  still  all  of  God,  whether  good 
or  evil.  For  from  Him,  and  through  Him, 
are  all  things  ;  and  what  is  not  of  His  love 
is  of  His  wrath."  And,  in  the  Mysterium 
Magnum,  Behmen  defines  the  life  of  man 
as  "  nothing  less  than  a  spark  of  the  will  of 
God." 

Of  death,  and  the  future  life,  Behmen  writes  : 
*'  The  soul,  when  it  departs  from  the  body, 
needeth  not  to  go  far ;  for  where  the  body 
dies,  there  is  heaven  and  hell.  God  is  there, 
and  the  devil  ;  yea,  each  in  his  own  kingdom. 
There  also  is  paradise,  and  the  soul  needeth 
only  to  enter  through  the  deep  door  in  the 
centre." 

Behmen  died  in  1626,  in  his  fiftieth  year.  To 
such  a  soul  death  could  have  no  terrors,  and  his 
last  words  were,  ''I  go  to-day  to  be  with  my 
Redeemer  and  my  King  in  Paradise."  The  outer 
life,  indeed,  remained  in  this  world  ;  but  that 
which  the  heart  had  apprehended  went  with  him 
to  where  "  the  open  fountain  in  the  heart  of 
Christ  Jesus  "  would  "  refresh   and    illumine    for 


144  JACOB   BEHMEN 

ever."     He  had  committed  all  to  the  sweet  love 

of  God. 

Behmen's  life  well  exemplifies  the  truth  of  his 
own  saying — that  the  greatest  power  and  virtue 
spring  from  lowliness  and  humility.  All  his  days 
he  had  lodged  in  the  melancholy  inn,  and,  as  he 
says  in  his  profound  treatise  on  the  Four  Com- 
plexions, he  wrote  for  no  other  purpose  than  that 
men  might  learn  how  to  know  themselves.  He 
was  not  born  of  art,  but  of  simplicity,  and  he 
acknowledged  all  who  loved  such  mystical  know- 
ledge as  his  brethren  in  Christ.  He  knew  that 
our  best  knowledge  here  is  but  in  part,  and 
that  not  until  we  attain  to  perfection  shall 
we  see  what  God  is,  and  what  He  can  do. 
He  died  in  faith,  looking  for  ''  the  time  of 
the  lilies."  The  following  is  one  of  Behmen's 
prayers : 

'*  O  Thou  great,  incomprehensible  God,  Who 
fillest  all,  be  Thou  indeed  my  heaven,  in  which 
the  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus  may  dwell.  Let 
my  spirit  be  indeed  the  music  and  the  joy  of 
Thy  spirit !  Do  Thou  make  music  in  me  .  .  . 
and  may  I  make  harmony  in  the  divine  kingdom 
of  Thy  joy,  in  the  great  love  of  God,  in  the 
wonders    of    Thy    glory    and    splendour,    in    the 


"THE    HOLY   CITY"  145 

company  of  Thy  holy  angeHc  harmonies,  and 
build  Thou  in  me  the  holy  city  of  Zion,  in 
which  we  all  live  as  children  of  Christ  in  one 
city,  which  is  Christ  in  us.  In  Thee  I  would 
lose  myself  utterly  ;  do  in  me  what  Thou 
wilt.     Amen." 


10 


CHAPTER    XII 

PETER  STERRY 

Peter  Sterry  and  his  writings  have  fallen  into 
general  but  undeserved  obscurity,  although, 
among  those  who  are  versed  in  mystical  theology 
and  thought,  his  name  is  honoured  and  his 
writings  studied  still.  Sterry's  works  exercised 
great  influence  in  their  day,  and  their  influence 
among  ''the  curious  and  understanding  in  this 
kind  of  writings "  is  not  yet  spent. 

Despite  the  fact  that  his  name  is  by  no  means 
familiar  to  the  multitude,  Sterry  is  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  English  mystics,  and  was 
numbered  among  the  circle  of  men  known  as 
the  Cambridge  Platonists.  Benjamin  Whichcote, 
on  hearing  of  Sterry's  death,  referred  to  him  as 
'*  that  greatly  enlightened  friend  of  ours,  who 
is  now  taken  from  us." 

The  date  of  his  birth  is  uncertain,  but  he  was 
born    in    Surrey,    and    educated    at     Emmanuel 

146 


HIS    LIFE  147 

College,  Cambridge,  which  he  entered  in  1629 — 
three  years  after  Whichcote  and  one  year  before 
Ralph  Cudworth.  He  graduated  B.A.,  in  1633. 
the  same  year  that  Nathaniel  Culverwel  entered 
Emmanuel,  and  was  elected  a  Fellow  of  his 
college  in  1636 — the  entrance  year  of  John 
Smith — proceeding  M.A.,  in  the  following  year. 
He  became  a  minister  of  the  gospel  in  London, 
"  and  was  one  of  the  fourteen  divines  nominated 
for  the  Westminster  Assembly  by  the  House 
of  Lords  in  May  1642."  Seven  years  later, 
Sterry  was  elected  as  preacher  to  the  Council 
of  State  with  a  stipend  of  ;^ioo  a  year  (which 
was  afterwards  doubled),  and  apartments  at 
Whitehall.  "His  duties  were  to  preach  on 
Sundays  before  Cromwell  either  at  Whitehall 
or  Hampton  Court,  on  every  other  Thursday 
morning  at  the  former,  and  frequently  before 
the  Lords  and  Commons."^  He  was  a  friend 
of  Sir  Henry  Vane  the  younger,  and  was  deeply 
attached  to  Cromwell. 

Sterry  took  no  pert  In  the  ecclesiastical 
polemics  of  his  time,  though  he  was  vehemently 
opposed  to  the  "  constitutions,  methods  and 
discipline  "   of   Presbyterianism,   and   was  a   sup- 

1  Article  in  Did.  Nat.  Biog.,  by  Miss  C.  Fell  Smith. 


148  PETER   STERRY 

porter  of  no  religious  communion  that  *'  laboured 
to  hedge  in  the  wind,  and  to  bind  up  the  sweet 
influences  of  the  Spirit."  A  man  of  cultivated 
mind  and  artistic  instincts,  with  a  feeling  for 
literature  and  painting,  after  the  death  of  Crom- 
well he  continued  to  reside  in  London,  taking 
pupils,  preaching  and  writing  until  his  death 
after  a  lingering  sickness,  in  1672.  When  asked 
on  his  death-bed,  ''  how  his  mind  stood,"  it  is 
recorded  that  "he  attested  by  his  last  words, 
with  much  composure,  that  it  then  pleased  God 
also  to  give  him  full  assurance  of  those  truths 
he  had  taught  others." 

In  addition  to  various  sermons,  Sterry's 
published  works  consist  of  T/ie  Spirit  Convincing 
of  Sin,  London,  1645  ;  Discourse  of  the  Freedom 
of  the  Will,  London,  1675 — the  preface  to  which, 
one  writer  has  said  '*  will  bear  a  comparison  with 
Cudworth's  famous  sermon  on  the  same  subject "  ; 
The  Rise,  Race  and  Royalty  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  in  the  Soul  of  Man  (with  preface  by  Crom- 
well's chaplain,  Jeremiah  White),  London,  1683  ; 
and  The  Appearance  of  God  to  Man  in  the  Gospel 
and  the  Gospel  Change,  London,  17 10.  This 
latter  contained  an  Explication  of  the  Trinity, 
and  a    Short    Catechism.      In    1785    there    was 


STERRY    and   VVHICHCOTE  149 

published  Prayers  selected  from  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
Everard,  Law,  and  {chiefly)  Peter  Sterry. 

As  a  prose  writer,  Sterry  has  unusual  distinc- 
tion of  style,  and  it  has  been  affirmed  that  some 
of  his  prose  is  ''worthy  of  comparison  with 
Milton's."  But  all  his  works,  which  are  indeed 
splendid  specimens  of  the  literary  efflorescence 
of  Christian  mysticism,  proclaim  him  to  be  a  fol- 
lower of  the  inward  light  and  a  pilgrim  along  "the 
interior  way."  It  is  certainly  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  '*  he  was  characterised  by  Sir  Benjamin 
Rudyerd  and  others  as  mystical  and  obscure." 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  recorded  that  on  one 
occasion  when  Whichcote  and  Sterry  were  discuss- 
ing together  intricate  theological  questions,  after 
Sterry  had  displayed  such  extraordinary  grasp 
and  knowledge  of  the  wide  issues  involved, 
Whichcote  rising  from  his  seat,  delivered  himself 
thus  :  ''  Peter,  thou  hast  overcome  me,  thou 
art  all  pure  intellect."  As  one  careful  student 
of  his  writings  observed,  Sterry  "  soared  into 
the  pure  empyrean  of  theology  with  unfailing 
pinions "  ;  and  as  another  remarks,  it  is  indeed 
"  strange  that  the  tinsel  of  the  English  mystics 
should  have  been  given  to  the  world,  and  the 
•fine  gold'  of  the  greatest  of  them  all  suppressed." 


ISO  PETER   STERRY 

The  mystic  or  evangelical  life  is,  according 
to  Sterry's  teaching,  a  life  in  which  man  ministers 
unto  God,  offering  up  himself  unto  God  ''  as  a 
perpetual  sacrifice  in  a  flame  of  love,"  and 
receiving  from  Him  divine  manifestations  and 
communications  according  to  the  divine  good 
pleasure,  "  and  all  this  with  an  open  contem- 
plation of  Him,  and  an  assured  complacency 
in  Him." 

He    describes    it    thus :    ''  When   the   soul    is 
taught  by  her  experience  and  her  God,  that  the 
secret  delights   of  the   natural    image    are   for   a 
repast  only,   not  a  repose,   that    in   the  strength 
of  these  as  Elijah's  food,  brought  by  angels,  she 
is  to  travel    through    a   wilderness — the  ruins  of 
nature  with  all  its  principles  and  images — till  she 
comes  to  the  Mount  of  God,  then  she  takes  up 
a   resolution    to   stay  no    longer  in  this  field  of 
swine  with  the  swine,  but  to  make  haste  to  her 
Father's  House,  where  every  servant  hath  bread 
enough — each    fleshly    form    is    filled    with    sub- 
stantial glory.    When  God  hath  secretly  instructed 
the  soul  thus  to  resolve.  He,  as  a  tender-hearted 
Father,    meets   her    in    the    beginning    of    these 
resolutions,  falls  upon  her  neck  and  kisseth  her. 
God  shows  Himself  in  the  soul,  gives  her  sweet 


THE    SPIRITUAL    PRINCIPLE  151 

testimonies  of  His  love,  carries  her  farther  off 
from  the  outward  image,  carries  her  through 
the  most  retired  principles  of  nature  beyond  and 
above  them,  into  this  spiritual  principle  and  state 
which  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  where  God  and 
the  creature  are  united,  where  the  spirit  is  as 
water,  the  flesh  as  a  flourishing  earth  standing 
in  that  water  and  out  of  it — being  continually 
fed,  continually  made  fruitful  and  beautiful  by 
it." 

God,  Sterry  affirms,  is  the  ground  of  every 
natural  being,  and  the  treasury  of  all  spiritual 
beings.  He  is  an  infinite  sweetness,  which  is 
both  fountain  and  sea  in  one — a  fountain  sending 
forth  many  streams,  many  sons  ;  a  sea  drawing 
all  into  its  bosom  again  by  a  natural  course.  Man 
has  come  from  that  boundless  deep,  and  his  most 
urgent  need  is  to  discover  the  way  of  returning. 
Sterry  adjures  us  to  allow  nothing  to  keep  us 
at  a  distance  from  God ;  for  where,  he  asks, 
can  we  be  so  well  as  in  the  bosom  of  Him 
who  loves  us  ?  Thus  th*e  mystic's  quest  is  a 
right  discovery  of  God  in  order  that  he  may 
attain  to  "the  life  of  glory  in  which  all  things 
lived  to  God,  before  they  lived  to  themselves 
in  the  flesh."     The  fleshly  state  Sterry  describes 


152  PETER   STERRY 

as  the  true  Sodom  in  which  our  Lord  was 
crucified — the  city  of  Darkness  in  which  the 
Eternal  Light  is  put  to  open  shame  and  torture, 
till  it  gives  up  its  Spirit  to  God.  The  end  of 
the  quest  is  not  reached  "  till  all  things  be  an 
infiniteness  of  Divine  Appearances,  a  fulness  of 
Divine  Images  flowing  forth  from  God,  and 
playing  in  the  Bosom  of  God,"  and  the  soul 
"  see  itself  again  in  God."  Sterry  teaches  that 
the  soul  with  all  its  capacity  is  natural,  and  that 
whatever  we  can  see,  feel,  declare  in,  or  from 
our  souls,  of  the  enjoyment  of  God,  is  but  the 
shadow  of  the  true  enjoyment  because  it  hath 
nature  for  its  seat,  if  not  for  its  root.  Our 
vocation  is  to  retire  beyond  nature  into  the 
spiritual  image  of  things,  to  enter  into  the  secrets 
and  depths  of  the  spiritual  man.  The  pity  of  it 
is  that  too  often  ''  we  set  the  feet  of  our  fleshly 
affections  upon  the  life  and  beauty  of  our  spiritual 
man,"  which  is  *'the  undefiled  image  of  God 
in  ourselves,  of  ourselves  in  God." 

Except  a  man  be  born  from  above  he  cannot 
enter  the  Divine  kingdom — this  is  the  affirmation 
of  all  Christian  mystics.  Sterry  says  that  our 
Lord  gave  His  disciples  "  a  full  description  of 
the  Christian   Mystery  " — of  the  New  Birth — in 


"AN    ETERNAL   GENERATION"         153 
the  following  words  :  *'  Except  ye  be  converted, 
and    become   as  little  children,   ye  cannot    enter 
into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."    Thus  the  mystic, 
or    spiritual   man,  is   born  of  God,   "  having   the 
Divine    nature,    the  very    root   and   seed    of   the 
Godhead,"  within  him.      He  is  without  cloud  or 
spot,   "because  the  seed    of   Divinity,    which    is 
an    Eternal    Generation,    is    ever    growing   up " 
within   him.      Sterry  likens  the  mystical  process 
in    the  soul  to   the  action  of  seminal  powers   in 
the    ground,    and    says  that    *'  the  Godhead,    by 
the  Gospel,  opens  itself  within  the  natural  man, 
and    brings    forth    into    light    the   spiritual,    the 
immortal  man  to  the  natural."     Sterry  calls  our 
life  in  nature  a  sleep,  and  the  raising  of  the  soul 
into    Christ    is  the  awakening  of  it.      The   soul 
must  pass  from  the  natural  life,  which  is  either 
one  of  darkness  or  of  dreams  into  the  life  which 
is  life  indeed. 

To  assist  our  conversion,  we  do  well  to  con- 
sider these  four  questions  : 

(i)  What  are  we?  By  descending  into  our 
own  being,  and  entering  into  *'  the  secretest 
retirement  "  of  our  own  spirit,  we  shall  discover 
that  we  are  not  our  own  original,  but  that  there 
is  "some  eternal  thing"  above  our  reach,  past 


154  PETER   STERRY 

our  understanding,  which  fashions  us,  and  carries 
us  on  in  its  own  image.  Whereupon,  Sterry 
bids  us  :  '*  Look  upward  then,  and  say,  O  Thou 
hidden  and  supreme  Substance  !  which  hast  cast 
me  as  thy  shadow  upon  this  earth,  comprehend 
me.  O  Thou  supreme  Pattern !  which  hast 
sent  me  forth  to  pass  through  this  world  in 
Thy  Image,  guide  me." 

(2)  Where  are  we  ?  We  are  in  a  world  of 
images,  and  our  business  is  to  pass  through  this 
world  as  through  ''  a  throng  of  apparitions,"  we 
ourselves  being  numbered  among  the  rest.  We 
are  urged  to  ascend  with  these  till  they  bring 
us  to  their  first  fountain,  where  we  and  they 
together  shall  drink  and  be  ''  wrapt  up  into  an 
Immortal  Fulness." 

(3)  Whence  came  we  ?  Sterry  answers  that 
we  came  forth  into  this  world  from  an  immutable 
Substance,  from  an  eternal  Original,  and  we 
shall  never  have  rest  till  we  return  thither  again. 
"  Happy  is  that  soul,"  says  Sterry,  ''  that  after  all 
her  weary  steps  through  the  world  to  seek  con- 
tent, now  tired,  thinks  of  returning  to  her  Father, 
her  first  Husband,  and  breathes  forth  such  sighs 
as  these  towards  Him  :  O  my  God  !  Thy  Fulness 
is  the  womb  out  of  which  I   was  brought  forth 


"THE  MAIN-LAND  OF  ETERNITY"  155 
into  this  world  ;  Thy  sweetness  is  the  Bosom  in 
which  I  must  eternally  rest.  How  long  shall 
I  linger  here  ?  O  when  shall  I  once  leave  this 
world,  and  come  again  to  Thee  ? " 

(4)  How  came  we  hither  ?  We  came  hither 
"  through  a  darkness."  Sterry  writes  :  "  We 
know  not  where  we  were,  when  God  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  earth  ;  or  what  we  were  before 
that,  when  all  our  bones  were  first  written  by 
God  in  His  book  ;  when  first  those  Eternal 
Forms  which  were  to  frame  and  sustain  every 
shape  or  state,  into  which  we  should  pass,  were 
brought  forth  in  the  Divine  Wisdom."  *'  Dark- 
ness is  the  bound  between  God  and  the  creature, 
through  which  all  things  pass  out  of  one  into 
the  other."  Therefore,  we  are  to  "  imagine  this 
life  as  an  island,  surrounded  with  a  sea  of  dark- 
ness, beyond  which  lies  the  main  land  of  Eternity. 
That  man  is  blessed  who  can  "  raise  himself  to 
such  a  pitch  as  to  look  off  this  island,  beyond 
that  darkness,  to  the  utmost  bound  of  things." 
•'What  shall  trouble  him,  on  this  twig  of  life, 
on  which  he  is  like  a  bird  but  now  alighted  from 
a  far  region  from  whence  again  he  shall  immedi- 
ately take  his  flight  ?  " 

The  soul   that  has  well    pondered    these    four 


156  PETER   STERRY 

questions  will  recognise  that  life  on  earth  "  is 
a  mixt  state  of  comforts  and  crosses,"  and  that 
the  one  thing  needful  is  to  experience  the  New 
Birth  which  will  open  up  to  the  soul  vistas  of 
visions  and  revelations  until  it  come  to  '*  Mount 
Zion,  on  which  is  the  great  assembly  of  the 
First-born." 

At  the  season  of  the  New  Birth,  says  Sterry, 
"  God  discovers  Himself  in  the  soul  as  a  glorious 
ground,  out  of  which  thy  life  and  thy  Jesus 
spring  up  together  by  degrees,  like  twin-lilies — 
roses  from  the  same  stalk  or  root,  which  is 
Christ."  When  the  set  time  is  come,  nothing 
can  withstand  that  rising,  for  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  soul  are  together  born  anew  from  the  womb 
of  Eternal  Love  where  they  lay  hid.  *'  They 
now  come  up  together  in  one  Spirit  into  one 
spiritual  life  and  heavenly  image,  in  which 
Paradise  also  comes  up  new  and  fresh  together 
with  them."  In  the  moment  of  Regeneration 
or  Conversion,  the  divine  nature  is  new-born 
in  the  soul  ;  or  stated  otherwise,  the  soul  is  new- 
born into  the  divine  nature,  and  "  comes  forth 
with  a  new  and  divine  being  into  a  new  and 
divine  world." 

Speaking   of    the    New    Birth,    Sterry    says  : 


THE   DIVINE    FOUNTAIN  157 

"When  the  Father  openeth  Himself  as  a  Foun- 
tain of  Divine  Love  in  your  spirits  ;  when  the 
Lord  Jesus  ariseth  up  and  appeareth  to  you  as 
the  Birth  and  Image  of  Divine  Love  within  this 
Fountain  ;  when  your  selves  appear  in  Him  one 
Love-Birth  in  this  Fountain  of  Love  together 
with  Him  ;  then  may  you  rejoice  and  say  :  '  Now 
I  live  ;  now  I  am  new-born  from  the  Love-spring 
on  high,  in  the  highest  glory.'  You  that  have 
the  mystery  of  this  Divine  Birth  revealed  in  you, 
who  see  the  garden  of  Love  flourishing  in  the 
midst  of  the  Fountain  of  Love  within  you,  retire 
into  this  Fountain,  into  the  Garden  in  the  Foun- 
tain, the  Lord  Jesus  in  the  Bosom  of  the  Father." 

This  is  the  rise  to  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
the  soul  of  man,  and  "  the  first  motion  in  religion, 
the  winding  of  the  soul  about  the  utmost  point 
of  the  creature,  and  turning  in  towards  God 
again";  or,  otherwise  expressed,  "the  touching 
of  the  soul  with  God." 

By  Sterry,  the  mystic  or  spiritual  Christian  is 
regarded  as  one  who  possesses  the  immediate 
and  powerful  breathings  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
Jesus  within  him,  and  his  teaching  on  the  Person 
and  office  of  Christ — his  evangelical  representa- 
tion— is  pronounced.     As  might  be  expected,  he 


158  PETER   STERRY 

lays  great  stress  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Indwelling 
Christ.  The  appearances  of  God  in  nature  were 
but  candle-lights,  dim  and  flickering,  but  in  the 
Gospel  the  Divine  manifestation  is  an  Eternal 
Brightness — ''  one  entire  light,  God  shining  forth 
by  His  Son,"  God  in  Christ  "  appears  as  One, 
comprehending  the  creature  in  Himself,  clothing 
Himself  with  the  creature,"  thus  taking  away 
the  distance  and  division.  He  "  finds  a  distance, 
but  makes  an  unity."  The  Mediator  breaks  not 
the  unity,  because  He  is  one  with  both.  God 
in  giving  us  His  Son  Jesus  "  gives  us  all  that 
He  is,  all  that  He  doth,  all  that  He  brings 
forth.  His  possessions,  treasures,  joys,  glories, 
Himself" 

Moreover,  while  the  Gospel  **  is  the  unveiling 
of  the  Face  of  Christ,"  it  is  also  the  unveiling 
*'  of  our  true  face,"  for  the  spiritual  man — the 
man  of  life  and  glory — is  already  complete, 
already  ours,  '*  only  it  is  hid  above  in  God." 
But  it  is  one  person  with  us ;  it  is  our  truest 
self  The  man  therefore  who  saves  the  life  of 
his  natural  flesh  and  abides  in  it,  loses  the  life 
of  his  spiritual  flesh  till  it  disappears  from  him  ; 
but  he  who  allows  the  outward  and  earthly  life 
to  perish  preserves  the  heavenly  life  in  himself 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MARRIAGE  159 

"  The  spiritual  man  and  Jesus  Christ  are  both 
one  spirit,  have  both  one  face."  So  close  is  the 
spiritual  marriage  which  the  Lord  makes  between 
Himself  and  the  soul  that  we  do  not  see  Jesus 
aright  if  we  see  not  ourself  in  Him  ;  while  we 
see  not  ourself  aright  unless  we  see  our  Saviour 
in  ourself;  for  "Christ  maketh  a  Christian  one 
mystical  person  with  Himself."  And  the  means 
by  which  the  Lord  makes  the  saint  one  Image 
with  Himself  are,  according  to  Sterry,  four: 
Manifestation,  Propagation,  Translation,  and 
Combination  or  Marriage.  Sterry  expresses  the 
intimacy  existing  between  the  soul  and  Christ 
by  saying  that  the  mystic  carries  about  with  him, 
in  the  earthen  vessel  of  his  flesh,  an  unspeakable 
treasure.  He  has  Christ  and  God  sojourning 
with  him  **  under  the  same  roof  of  this  taber- 
nacle ;  for  God  is  in  Christ,  Christ  is  the 
spiritual  man  ;  the  spiritual  man  lives  in  the 
natural  ;  God  is  one  with  Christ  ;  Christ  and 
the  spiritual  man  are  one  spirit."  Thus  the 
mystic  maintains  a  perpetual  fellowship  with  his 
Saviour,  since  He  is  in  him  as  one  with  him. 
"  It  is  a  single  life  ;  it  is  an  association  of  lives  ; 
it  is  the  life  of  two  in  one ;  of  a  saint  and  his 
Saviour,   it  is  a  marriage  of  lives  and  spirits." 


i6o  PETER   STERRY 

The  mystic  fellowship  of  the  soul  with  Christ 
is  well  expressed  in  the  following  words :  ''If 
the  Lord  Jesus  be  in  thee,  let  thy  life  be  thy 
Saviour's,  and  not  thine  ;  let  the  life  which  thou 
livest  be  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God ;  by 
an  Union  or  Incorporation  with  Him.  Let  thy 
life  be  a  resignation  of  thyself  to  thy  Saviour, 
a  derivation  of  His  life  into  thee.  He  hath 
loved  thee  above  all  things  ;  let  Him  possess 
thee  entirely.  Be  thou  His,  and  not  another's — 
not  thine  together  with  His.  He  hath  given 
Himself  in  exchange  for  thee,  to  be  in  thee, 
instead  of  thee.  Let  Him  alone  form  and  act 
thee." 

Sterry  warns,  too,  with  emphatic  words,  against 
the  pretending  to  a  union  which  does  not  exist  : 
"  If  we  say  that  Jesus  Christ  the  Light  of  God 
dwells  in  us,  and  yet  delight  not  in  the  ways  of 
His  Spirit  which  are  life,  beauty,  pleasantness, 
liberty,  but  are  found  in  the  paths  of  flesh  and 
walks  of  sensuality,  we  are  not  united  to  Him 
who  is  Truth,  but  have  our  hearts  still  lying  in 
the  bosom  of  him  who  is  the  father  of  lies." 

Sterry  bids  us  search  out  *'  the  secrets  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  in  our  soul.  Thou  hast  a 
Master    in   thy  own   breast.     None   teaches  like 


"THE    LIFE   OF    LOVE"  i6i 

Him.  Propound  thy  darkness,  thy  desires,  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  in  thine  own  soul ; 
there  hearken  to  the  private  whispers ;  there 
receive  the  inward  answers,  repHes,  representa- 
tions of  that  Spirit  which  will  pour  forth  itself 
into  a  stream  of  sweet  and  deep  apprehensions, 
in  a  flood  of  powerful  and  glorious  manifestations, 
if  thou  wait  upon  it.  It  will  give  thee  life, 
light  and  language  in  heavenly  things."  The 
Indwelling  Christ  is  the  supreme  Illuminator, 
and  the  mystic  is  drawn  to  Christ  by  the  cords 
of  a  conquering  love.  "O  Jesus!  cast  Thou 
but  one  glimpse  of  Thyself  into  our  souls, 
and  we  shall  run  from  all  things  after  Thee, 
fly  beyond  all  things  towards  Thee.  How  dark 
and  cold  are  these  shadows  to  him  that  hath 
seen  the  Light  of  Beauty  in  Thy  Person,  and 
felt  the  warm  life  of  love  in  Thine  embraces !  " 
God  having  revealed  Himself  in  the  soul, 
draws  the  soul  farther  away  from  the  outward 
image,  beyond  and  above  the  most  retired 
principles  of  nature  into  the  spiritual  principle 
and  state  which  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  and 
where  God  and  the  creature  are  united.  The 
spiritual  state  of  things  when  made  perfect 
becomes    the    divine    state   of    things    in    God. 

U 


i62  PETER   STERRY 

vSterry  describes  the  union  of  the  soul  with 
God  in  the  following  words:  "The  soul  having 
been  awhile  taught  in  the  bosom  of  Christ, 
begins  to  grow  up  to  a  fuller  sense  of  God,  in 
a  more  naked,  abstracted,  absolute,  and  com- 
prehensive manner.  Now  she  begins  to  put 
off  all  that  ever  she  put  on,  that  God  may  be 
her  only  clothing.  She  begins  to  think  it  not 
enough  to  live  and  walk  in  the  spirit  of  God — 
except  she  be  one  Spirit  with  Christ  and  God. 
She  perceives  some  dark  glimpse  of  that  which 
is  meant,  to  know  as  we  are  known — that  is,  in 
patrid,  at  home  in  God,  comprehensively,  by 
being  comprehended  in  God,  and  so  compre- 
hending Him  again."  The  desire  of  the  mystic 
is  to  dwell  for  ever  in  the  naked  embraces  of 
the  Eternal  Spirit  of  Life  and  Beauty,  to  go 
from  hence  for  ever,  but  departing,  to  be  for 
ever  with  the  Lord. 

Sterry  knows,  however,  that  the  heavenly 
image  in  the  soul  that  has  been  reborn  is 
subject  to  various  clouds  and  storms  while  in 
the  body,  for  it  is  always  in  conjunction  with 
the  fleshly  image.  This  seldom  suffers  it  to 
shine  forth  clearly  and  purely  ;  often,  indeed, 
it  is  so  clouded  and  captivated  that  it  can  send 


"THE   DAY   OF   CHRIST"  163 

forth  neither  sweet  beam  nor  spark  to  enHghten 
the    soul    "  to  any    sensible    discovery    of  it,    or 
warm    thee    with    any    sensible    comfort    in     it." 
The  soul  has  to  pass  through  ''  a  night  of  eternal 
darkness    upon    all    earthly    contents,"    ere    it    is 
brought    ''  out   of  the    light    of    this    world    into 
the  Day  of  Christ."     But  by  resignation,  conse- 
cration   and    prayer    the    mystic    wins    his    way. 
He    dwells    in    the    Spirit,    as    a    priest    in    the 
Temple,    in    purity,    spirituality,     with     a     holy 
reverence    and    a    sacred    awe.       He    offers    up 
perpetually   his  life    as   a  sacrifice   to   the  life  of 
Christ.      This    is    his    constant  prayer :    ''  Come 
thou    north    wind,    thou    living    power    of    my 
Saviour's    death,    blow    upon    me  ;    come,    thou 
south  wind,  thou  glorious  power  of  my  Saviour's 
Resurrection,  breathe  upon  me." 


INDEX 


Abandonment,  '57 
Achievement,  Spiritual,   130 
Aristotle,   15 
Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  The, 

123 
Aurora,  The,   134 

Behmen,  Jacob,  132-45  ;  his 
writings,  132  ;  spiritual  in- 
sight and  genius  of,  133  ; 
influenced  by  Paracelsus, 
133  ;  St.  Martin's  opinion 
of,  133  ;  Wesley's  char- 
acterisation of  Behmen's 
Works,  133  ;  Henry  More 
on,  133  ;  his  spiritual  and 
mental  indebtedness,  1 34  ; 
his  first  vision,  1 34  ;  his 
second  vision,  134,  135  ; 
The  Ajirora,  134;  Dr. 
Whyte  on,  136  ;  William 
Law  on,  136  ;  on  the  New 
Birth,  137,  139  ;  The 
Threefold  life  of  man,  137  ; 
on  the  will,  137,  138  ;  on 
abiding  in  Christ,  139; 
on  the  indwelling  of  Christ, 
1 39  ;  on  the  inward  power 
of  Christ's  death,  140  ;  on 
symbolism,  141  ;  Signa- 
tiira  Rerum,  141  ;  on  God 
filling  all  things,  142  ;  on 
the    deep    door,     143  ;     on 


death  and  the  future  life, 
143  ;  The  Four  Complex- 
ions,    144  ;     a    prayer    of, 

I44»  145 

Benson,  A.  C,  quoted,  7 

Bigg,  Dr.,  quoted,  5,  8  ;  on 
Clement,  26,  39 

Birth  of  the  Son  of  God  in 
the  soul,  61  :  see  Re- 
generation 

Blake,  William,  6 

Christianity,  Esoteric,  7 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  26-40 ; 
his  writings,  26  ;  his  aim, 
27  ;  on  initiation,  27,  28  ; 
on  perfection,  27,  35  ;  on 
knowledge,  28,  31-3,  36  ; 
on  man's  regeneration,  28  ; 
on  Christ,  28  ;  on  the 
lesser  and  the  great  mys- 
teries, 28,  30 ;  on  the 
soul's     first     nourishment, 

29  ;  on  full  insight,  29 ; 
on  contemplation,  29  ;  on 
divine  science,  29  ;  on  the 
perfection  of  man,  29,  2)1'^ 
on  mysteries,  29  ;  on  the 
two  forms  of  truth,  30 ; 
on    the    concealed    reality, 

30  ;  on  illumination,  30  ; 
on  interpretation,  30  ;  on 
the  historical  facts  of  Chris- 


16s 


i66 


INDEX 


tianity,  30  ;  on  true  wis- 
dom, 31  ;  on  the  veil  of 
ignorance,  31  ;  on  the  true 
meaning  of  the  Scriptures, 
31  ;  on  God's  workman- 
ship, 32  ;  on  the  twofold 
character  of  the  Christian 
life,  32  ;  on  the  soul's 
surrender,  33  ;  on  "  deifi- 
cation," 33,  34  ;  on  union 
\\dth  the  Holy  Spirit,  34  ; 
on  the  image  of  God,  34  ; 
on  the  mystic's  life,  34, 
35  ;  on  the  mystic  trans- 
lation and  rest,  35,  39 ; 
on  the  contemplation  of 
God,  35  ;  familiar  with 
the  language  of  the  Greek 
mysteries,  35  ;  on  purga- 
tion, 35,  36,  38  ;  on  the 
grace  of  illumination,  -^^j  ; 
on  the  source  of  all  true 
knowledge,  ^-j  \  on  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture, 
38  ;  on  love,  38,  39  ;  a 
prayer  of,  40 
Correspondences,  4,  56 
Crashaw,  on  St.  Teresa,   120, 

121 
Cromwell,  147 
Cudworth,  Ralph,  147 
Culverwel,  Nathaniel,   147 
Cunninghame  Graham,   Mrs., 

on  St.  Teresa,  1 17 
"  Cups  of  bitterness,"  98 


Darkness,  The  lonely,  j^ 
Dereliction,  93 


Detachment,     84,     85,     115, 

123,  124 
"  Divine  Abyss,"  The,  105 
Dionysius     the     Areopagite, 
41-52  ;   his   date    and    na- 
tionality unknown,  41  ;  his 
aim,     41  ;      Platonic     ele- 
ments in  his  teaching,  41  ; 
his    view    of    Christianity, 
42  ;    his  conception  of  God. 

42  ;  his  "  world-view,"  a 
modification  of  the  Neo- 
Platonic  theory  of  emana- 
tion, 42  ;  on  the  world  as 
an  allegory,  42  ;  on  God 
as  the  Absolute,  43  ;  on 
the  "  supra-national  unity," 

43  ;  on  the  Good  and  the 
Beautiful  as  manifestations 
of  God,  43  ;  on  the  know- 
ledge of  God,  44  ;  on  rites 
and  symbols,  44,  49 ;  on 
perfection,  44  ;  on  "  deifi- 
cation," 44  ;  not  a  pan- 
theist, 44  ;  on  the  im- 
manence and  transcendence 
of  God,  45  ;  on  the  mys- 
tical via  negativa  and  the 
via  affirmativa,  45  ;  on  unity 
in  diversity,  45  ;  on  mystic 
ignorance,  46  ;  on  the 
"  divine  dark,"  46,  47  ; 
his  influence  on  the 
mediaeval  mystics,  47,  94  ; 
on  union  with  God,  47,  51, 
52  ;  on  denuding  the  mind, 
47  ;  on  tradition  and  Scrip- 
ture, 49  ;  on  the  Divine 
Hierophant,  50  ;    on  Christ 


INDEX 


167 


as  the  Light-Bearer  and 
Light-Bringer,  51  ;  on  the 
three  stages  of  the  mystical 
ladder,  51 
Dorner,  criticism  of  Diony- 
sius,  50  ;   criticism  of  Suso, 

93 
Dying  to  live,  57 

Eckhart,  Master,  53-66 ;  on 
the  knowledge  of  God,  54, 
55  ;  the  apprehension  of 
God,  55  ;  on  the  creation 
as  an  expression  of  the 
divine  life,  56 ;  on  the 
soul's  attainment,  56 ;  on 
"  correspondences,"  56  ;  on 
God's  desire  for  man,  56  ; 
on  the  divine  disclosure, 
56,  57  :  on  dying  to  self,  57  ; 
on  "  abandonment,"  57  ; 
on  union,  57;  on  "the 
voice  of  God,"  58  ;  on  the 
soul's  "  return,"  58  ;  on 
the  soul  and  God,  57,  58  ; 
on  God's  work  in  the  soul, 

59  ;    on  "  the  little  spark," 

60  ;  on  regeneration,  60  ; 
on  the  birth  of  Christ  in 
the  soul,  61  ;  on  man's 
will  and  God's  will,  61,  62  ; 
on  the  work  of  divine 
grace,  62  ;  on  sin,  6^,  64  ; 
on  prayer,  64,  65  ;  prac- 
tical mysticism  of,  65  ;  a 
prayer  of,  66 

Ecstasy,   114 

Eternal    wisdom,    The    Book 
of  the,  84 


Eternity,    Idea    of,    8  ;     the 

main -land  of,   155 
Ewald,  on  the  true  mystic,  65 

Four  Complexions,  The,   144 
"  Friends  of  God,"  95 

Hierotheus  41, 

Huysmans,  M.,  on  St.  Teresa, 
116 


Ignorance,  Mystic,  73,  74 

Illumination,  12 

Imitatio  Christi,   103 

Incarnation,  The,  20 

Indwelling  of  Christ,  The,  1 39» 
158 

Inge,  Dr.,  on  the  doctrine  of 
"  deification,"  T,Tf  ;  quoted, 
54 ;  on  Suso's  autobio- 
graphy, 82  ;  on  St.  Teresa, 
109  ;  on  St.  John  of  the 
Cross,   122 

Inner  life,  Summit  of,  71 

"  Inner  light,"  Doctrine  of 
the,  20 

Interior  Castle,  The,  115 

Interior  life,  The,  79 

Interior  spirits.  The  choice  of, 

77 
Interior      Translation,      The, 

129,  130 
Interior  Way,  12 

John,  St.,  Gospel  according 
to,  20-25  '■>  o"  th®  Incar- 
nation, 20  ;  on  the  creation, 
21  ;     his    use    of    symbols^ 


i68 


INDEX 


21  ;  on  the  supreme  reve- 
lation, 21  ;  on  the  New 
Birth,  21  ;  teaching  on 
purification,  22  ;  on  the 
soul's  development,  22  ; 
on  the  Living  Bread,  22  ; 
on  the  soul's  participation 
in  Christianity,  22  ;  on 
the  appropriation  of  a 
sacrificial  life,  23  ;  on  the 
mystic  idea  of  unity,  23  ; 
on  the  abiding  union,  23  ; 
doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  23, 
24  ;  on  Divine  knowledge, 
23  ;  on  the  threefold  wit- 
ness, 23  ;  the  witness  in 
the  heart,  24  ;  the  witness 
of  the  Spirit,  24  ;  the 
Spirit  and  Christ,  24  ;  the 
Spirit  as  teacher,  24  ;  on 
Love,  24,  25 
Johnof  the  Cross,  St.,  122-31  ; 
his  ascetic  austerities,  122  ; 
Dr.  Inge  on,  122  ;  Vaughan 
on,  122,  123  ;  The  Ascent 
of  Mount  Carmel,  123  ; 
The  Obscure  Night  of  the 
Soul,  123  ;  on  detachment, 
123,  124;  on  the  surrender 
of  finite  things,  124 ;  on 
the  night  of  the  sense,  125  ; 
on  the  right  of  the  spirit, 
125;  on  purgation,  126; 
mystical  theology,  126  ;  the 
night  of  the  will,  127  :  the 
Song  of  the  Obscure  Night, 
128-9;  on  "The  Interior 
Translation,"  129,  130; 
"  the    mystical    love-gift," 


130  ;  on  the  love  of  God, 
130,  131  ;  a  prayer  of,  131 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  quoted,  4 

Lasson,  quoted,  4 

Law,    William,    on    Behmen, 

136 
Lewis,  David,  quoted,  128 
Luther,  on  Tauler's  Sermons, 

lOI 

Maeterlinck,  on  Ruysbroeck, 

67 
More,  Henry,  on  Behmen,  133 
Mysteries,  The  Greek,  15 
Mysterium  Magnum,  yj,  143 
Mystery,  2 
Mystical  Love-Gift,  The,  130 

—  Wisdom,   127 

—  View  of  life,  5 

—  Prayer,   100 
Mysticism,    definition   of,    2  ; 

criticisms  of,  3,  53  ;  an 
axiom  of,  5  ;  content  of, 
8  ;  history  of,  13  ;  Chris- 
tian, 6  ;  charter  of,  20 
Mystics,  I,  3,  10;  secret  of 
the,  2  ;  belief  of  the,  4, 
38  ;  life  of  the,  65,  150, 
151,  163  ;  progress  of, 
115;  operation  of  the,  3  ; 
spiritual  education  of,  5  ; 
experiences  of,  7,  15  ;  the 
desire  of,  11,  13,  152;  the 
path  of,  12,  93  ;  use  of 
symbols,  43  ;  language  of 
the,    53 

Neo-Platonism,  41 
Nettleship,  R.  L.,  quoted,  4 
Nicholas  of  Strassburg,  96 


INDEX 


169 


Obscure  Night  of  the  Soul,  The, 

123 
Ordo  spiritualium  nuptiarum, 

Paracelsus,    his    influence    on 

Behmen,    133 
Passio    Christi,    85,    87,    89, 

90,  91,  112,  140 
Paul,  St.,  14-20;  the  prince 
of  Christian  mystics,  14  ; 
his  Gospel,  14  ;  his  visions 
and  revelations,  14,  15  ? 
his  mysticism,  15  ;  his 
union  with  Christ,  16  ;  on 
crucifixion  with  Christ,  16; 
on  the  Headship  of  Christ, 
17  ;  on  the  Church  as  the 
Bride  of  Christ,  17,  18  ; 
on  the  mystic  union,  18  ; 
the  Greek  mysteries  and 
St.  Paul's  language  and 
imagery,  18  ;  on  degrees 
of  initiation,  18  ;  on  en- 
lightenment, 18  ;  on  con- 
ditions of  initiation,  18,  19  ; 
his  doctrine  of  the  Spirit, 
19  ;  on  Christ  and  the 
Spirit,  19 ;  on  the  dis- 
cernment of  divine  truth, 
19  ;  on  spiritual  under- 
standing,   20 

Perfection,  Spiritual,  86 

Plato,  13 

Proclus,  41 

Purgation,  12,  126 

Regeneration,    60,    61,     137, 

139,   152,   i53»   156,   157 
Resignation,  87 


Ritchie,  Professor,  quoted,  53 
Rudyerd,  Sir  Benjamin,  149 
Ruysbroeck,  67-80  ;  Maeter- 
linck on,  67  ;  on  love  and 
rest,  69  ;  on  the  stages 
of  the  inward  way,  69-74  ; 
on  love,  70  ;  on  the  active 
life,  70  ;  on  the  internal 
life,  70,  71  ;  on  illumina- 
tion or  supernatural  vision, 
71  ;  on  interior  love,  71  ; 
on  the  contemplative  life, 
72,  7:^,  ;  on  "  the  lonely 
darkness,"  7Z;  the  stage 
of  ignorance,  73,  74  ;  on 
possessing  God,  74  ;  on 
the  life  of  love,  75  ;  on 
the    Bridegroom's    coming, 

75  ;     on   union   with   God, 

76  ;  pantheism  in,  76  ;  on 
"  the  dark  silence,"  77  ; 
on  secret  joys,  77  \  on  the 
endurance  of  sufferings,  77y 
78  ;    on  the  Incarnate  Son, 

78  ;  His  mysticism  practical 

79  ;  on  the  interior  life,  79 

Saint-Martin,  quoted,  56,  61, 
70  ;    on  Behmen,  133 

Scala  perfectioniSy   10 

Schwenkf eld,    1 34 

Self-abandonment,  86,  105, 
106 

Signatura  Rerum,   141 

Smith,  John,  147 

Song  of  the  Obscure  Night, 
The,  128,   129 

"  Spark,"  the  little,  60 

Spiritual  man,  The,  158,  159 


I70 


INDEX 


Spiritual  marriage,  The,   159 

—  principle,  The,   151 

Sterry,  Peter,  146-63  ; 
Whichcote  and,  146,  147, 
149  ;  at  Emmanuel  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  147  ;  as 
Preacher  to  the  Council  of 
State,  147  ;  writings  of, 
148  ;  his  prose,  149  ;  on 
the  mystic  life,  150,  151  ; 
on  the  spiritual  principle, 
151  ;  on  the  end  of  the 
Quest,  152  ;  on  the  New 
Birth,  152,  153,  156,  157  ; 
on  the  soul's  exile,  154; 
on  "  the  mainland  of 
eternity,"  155  ;  on  the 
Indwelling  Christ,  158  ;  on 
the  spiritual  man,  158, 
159  ;  on  the  spiritual  mar- 
riage, 159  ;  on  union  with 
Christ,  160,  161  ;  union  I 
with  God,  162  ;  on  the  | 
mystic  life,    163  I 

Suso,  81-94;    his  asceticism,   > 
81  ;     his   visions   and    ecs-   I 
tasies,     81-3  ;      his     auto-   i 
biography,   82  ;    the   Book   | 
of  the  Eternal  Wisdom,  84  ;   '. 
on  detachment,  84,  85  ;   on  ; 
the  Passion  of  Christ,   85,   i 
S7,  89,  90,  91 ;  on  spiritual  ; 
perfection,     86 ;      on    self- 
abandonment,      86  ;        the   ' 
basis  of  his  mystical  teach- 
ing, 86  ;  on  resignation,  87  ; 
on   cross-bearing,    87  ;     on 
the    secrets    of    God,    88  ; 
on  the  Bridegroom  of  the 


soul,    92  ;     on    dereliction, 

93  ;    influence  of  Dionysius 

on,  94 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  quoted,  12 
Symbol,  Use  of,  10,  11 
Symbolism,    141  ;     Christian, 

6  ;    universal,  6 

Tauler,  95-107  ;  influenced 
by  earlier  mystics,  95  ; 
influence  of  Eckhart  upon, 
96  ;  influence  of  Nicholas 
of  Strassburg  upon,  96  ; 
the  preaching  of,  96  ;  on 
the  indwelling  of  God,  97  ; 
on  "an  exceeding  bitter 
myrrh,"  98,  99  ;  on  the 
work  of  God  in  the  soul, 
100  ;  on  the  essence  of  the 
mystic's  prayer,  100 ;  on 
the  sinfulness  of  sin,  100-2  ; 
on  the  Cross  of  Christ's 
humanity,  102  ;  on  the 
imitation  of  Christ,  103  ;  his 
doctrine  of  self-abandon- 
ment, 105  ;  on  the  "  di- 
vine abyss,"  105,  106  ;  on 
"  the  secret  union,  107 
Tennyson,  quoted,  136 
Tevsteegen,  Hymns  of,  quoted, 

Teresa,  St.,  108-21  ;  visions 
and  voices,  109,  no;  her 
practice  of  mental  prayer, 
1 10  ;  four  degrees  of  prayer, 
112;  the  prayer  of  quiet, 
113  ;  the  prayer  of  union, 
113;  the  prayer  of  ecstasy, 
114;    on  the  best  prayer. 


INDEX 


171 


T 14  ;     The    Interior   Castle,   ' 
115;      on     "detachment," 
115  ;  her  insight,  116  ;    "a 
sharp    martyrdom,"     117; 
her  Way  of  Perfection,  117; 
on  the  indwelling  of  Christ, 
118,    119,    120 ;    on  super- 
natural illumination,   129 
Theology,  Mystical,   126 
Threefold  life  of  man,  The,  137 

Union,    The   Mystery   of,    6  ; 
The     fact     of,      12;      the 
Mystical,    15,    47»    57»    58, 
60,  75-7,  106,  107,  162 
Union  with  Christ,  160,  161 
Unity,  The  Idea  of,  8,  23 

Vane,  Sir  Henry,  147 
Vaughan,   R.   A.,   on   Diony- 


sius,   41  ;     on   Ruysbroeck, 

79  ;  on  Tauler,  105  ;   on  St. 

John  of  the  Cross,  122,  123 
Vision,  Supernatural,  71 
Visions   and   revelations,    79, 

81-3,      127  ;      voices     and, 

109,   no 

Waite,  A.  E.,  quoted,  3,   n, 

48,  74,  104,  126 
Way  of  Perfection,  The,  117 
Weigel,  134 
Wesley,    John,    on    Behmen, 

133 
Whichcote,       Benjamin,     on 

Sterry,    146,    147,   149 
White,   Jeremiah,    148 
Whitticr,  J.  G.,  quoted,  105 
Whyte,    Dr.,    on   St.    Teresa, 

108,  no;    on  Behmen,  136 


PrtfiUd  by  Hastll,  l^Vatson  &  Vin»y,  Ld.,  London  and  Ayltsbury. 


012  01038  0485 


DATE  DUE 

APR  1  t 

1995 

DEC  0 

n996 

mi 

' 

DEMCO  38-297 


I 


